


Built to be Destroyed

by RiptideLetMeGo



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Character Death, Denial, Depression, Heavy Angst, Infatuation, Internal Monologue, Knighthood, Long, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Not Beta Read, Other, Post-Embrace the Void Ending (Hollow Knight), Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Siblings, Trauma, Wordcount: Over 100.000, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 136,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28568421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiptideLetMeGo/pseuds/RiptideLetMeGo
Summary: The Hollow Knight was built to be destroyed, ultimately. Anything after is a boon, a gift for them in their post-mortem.Why they keep on living is beyond them. Nonetheless they do, with the Daughter and Ghost of Hallownest by their side to face the quietness of the endless night, without the threat of the Old Light’s dawn.What is death but further transformation?[Alternatively: The siblings survive and gang up. Lots of self-discovery for the HK. Check tags for more details.]
Relationships: Grimm/The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet & The Knight, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King
Comments: 97
Kudos: 118





	1. Beyond Impossibility

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, foul cringer! Welcome to my work. Please check the tags every time you show up here, I hope to update them often as stuff happens and I suck with summaries. 
> 
> I am a self-absorbed and highly prolix writer, be harned. This is unnecessarily long, oftentimes monotone, and tremendously like a monologue. Writing things like these are part of my personal exercise of “trying to be more succinct”
> 
> I fail every time. Welcome to the shitshow.

Time was an immeasurable thing in Hallownest, but it hadn't always been the case. 

Once, days were long and inconsistent, held at its first moment with a golden light that threatened to dawn atop Hallownest's farthest northeast, the Kingdom’s very own crown. There it remained, as it communed with its followers, before it was gone without ever raising it into a second height or even a midday. An eternal dawn while it lasted, brought by the summons and dreams of a people that were the first to wilt at the infection. Traitors to that light, one could say, if they had witnessed the events unfold before their eyes, and seen the meetings that unfurled in response. At the first sight of infection, concern arose among the higher born, and as it spread, secret reunions and whispered talks led a monarch to conceive a plan at his last resort. 

It was the end of the days in Hallownest, and in turn the Pale King had become the only light the inhabitants of this Kingdom knew in the waking world. Similarly, he had attempted to create a routine that in a way would replace the dawn his people were accustomed to. Whether his whitish glow seen from atop the City of Tears could compare to her yellow brightness, it was a matter to question and debate. In a manner, it too was a matter of taste. But he had tried, nonetheless. 

Without the endless dawn to signal time, the people of Hallownest retreated to using the tools of the older tribes to measure time, independent of either glow or tide. The mantises brewed beverages that took always the same amount of time to be ready for consumption, and they managed four batches of these at every season, if they started at the sight of the first bare bush in Greenpath. Four seasons to alter the stages of the wilderness around them, and then the cycle began anew, and they called this a year. That was one way of counting time. Another was the hourglasses of those in Deepnest. A contraption that spilled sand at an equal pace and the weavers determined that twelve turns were what signalled the end of a day and the beginning of another. Based on this later contraption, Monomon, the monarch’s wisest, built the first clockworks, and the intricate machinery was a massive but terminally accurate creation, dividing the hours of the Deepnest glass into a dish, calling the hour’s fraction minutes, sixty within each weaver hour.

Like this, time was reborn in Hallownest. For half of the day, a little more, and a little less, the Pale King glowed and lit up what was known today as the City of Tears. Independent of him and his apparition, every day cycled and the bugs of Hallownest built their schedules in a manner their brethren now too could time. Thirty days made a mantises' brew, a month, and roughly four months lasted the seasons that changed the foliage in Greenpath and determined which flowers were to bloom, which ones were to wilt. Time was reborn, in a way no bug had ever seen before. The Pale King truly had given them it all - the means to grow, to think, to develop. To write and sing and do art. Giving them time, far more consistent than the Old Light once had done.

It didn't matter now, they supposed. For there were no clocks in Hallownest anymore, at least none in Dirtmouth. One could try and make a rough guess of how many days passed from how many times they had felt too exhausted to move, but alas, that was as arbitrary as it could be. For they were spending far too much time unconscious, and in turn, they rarely saw their sibling rest. They had counted several days since their arrival in Dirtmouth, but for Hornet, their entire venture might as well have been part of a very long night. 

And what a long night indeed. She must have been standing guard in front of the Temple of the Black Egg for hours on end, awaiting the arrival of the only one that could enter the temple, left ajar by the breaking of the seals and the death of the Dreamers, her mother among them. Certainly she had envisioned an end to this ordeal - to enter, to find the vessel of the infection, and put an end to either the Higher Being residing within, or to simply replace its jail with a fresher one, either way the Daughter of Hallownest would see it done. As petite as any child, yet as full of valor as any knight. Her birthright was royalty, yet in the decaying Kingdom, it mattered naught and she knew. Only her duty remained, and she would see it through. 

She had been ready to see it through them too, with her needle and mighty fierceness, the weaver being the first thing they saw when they emerged from the temple, and she seemed every inch ready to fight them through if there was need.

But there wasn't need. She saw it rather early that there was no fight to be had, whatever battle that had to happen, already had done so somewhere else, having never passed through these once-sealed gates and her watchful guard. For a moment, they imagined she was as confused as they were, but none could have been as confused as they were.

If only they had a voice to explain to her the little that they knew, perhaps it could tie off some mysteries she had, and replace them with the mysteries they thought of. How.  _ Where _ . Time had passed without markings within his cage and sarcophagus yet they could recall a handful of events that served as milestones, simply placed in order and some closer to one another, others further away, but only so in a comparative and retroactive notion of time. There was nothing, then there was dreams. There was Her rage, and the dripping of Her honeyed infection, leaking through their shell and they couldn't wipe it out. She corroded the seals too, reaching for the Dreamers where they lay. There was their cry, that rattled the chains that bound them, as they understood, finally, that they had failed.

_ Don't think, don't feel _ ; they could do it but it did not overwrite the fact that it  _ was _ a thought and it  _ was _ a feeling holding all that together. The Void wasn't a liquid poured into a dead shell, not when it was given purpose. And what besides feeling and thought could do so? Perhaps another Vessel would have been able to hold it at bay for longer, perhaps longer than the lifespan of all the bugs in Hallownest, and thus would spare them from the infection as it had been meant to do. Perhaps another could have held better on that thin line between being only hollow enough to house an enraged Goddess, yet with enough focus in them so to keep them from being a corpse coated in black ink. They didn't know, but what they knew was that their head's thrashing wasn't their own doing anymore, and the shrieks that echoed in their prison weren't their own, for they had no voice to scream their woe.

There was no freedom in welcoming that awareness, unlike what one might think. There was no relief in that defeat, there was no peace after the acceptance that they were not ever capable of achieving the duty they had been given. There was nothing but this disabling distress that fueled Her corrosion and made Her howling sound so much like laughter, as She fed through them and the seals and into Hallownest once more. 

Between their defeat and their liberation there was a much smaller gap than between all the other events they used as milestones, yet it seemed like an eternity. And despite most, they weren't certain their current fate was much better than their imprisonment at the temple, although good sense knew Hornet would not welcome such thoughts. 

One thing they knew, however, was that living in the uncertainty, at the aftermath of an impossibility, was a despairing and absolutely revolting way to exist. Never had they experienced such a thing - their birth had been thoroughly planned, their ascension hoped for, perhaps foretold in the Wyrm’s consultations, and their growth had been orchestrated in the manner a sculptor worked and shaped brittle metal into an unique cuirass. Layers and layers of metal, stone, Void and Shell composed their prison and resting place, and their mission was something that could be described in a few words that betrayed the size of the effort required to see it through.

If only they were the unthinking, unfeeling, unliving Vessel their makers had envisioned. If only perhaps they had told them, somehow, perhaps their fate would have been different, and there would have been time for the Pale King to see through his mistake. It was only hope, fueled by adoration, that permitted the Hollow Knight to believe their King and sire would have changed tactics and simply not tossed them in the Abyss once again, until another more worthy and hollow than them would arise. For a being so empty, they had always wielded an unmistakable, unwavering faith towards their progenitor, in a devotion so blind that suffocated somehow the hurt they felt. For it  _ hurt.  _ They weren’t meant to feel, but oh did they feel, and their fate wounded in thought, wounded in Void and Shell. 

Sacrificed unwillingly, yet, they had never stopped, had they? How could they? There had been a thousand moments in which he could have done something, events from a time where there had been time, and as such he could retell the exact days and seasons when they could have stopped their banishment. But they had not. Like any other bug, they too followed light, be it new or old, and if that light believed in them, how could they not? Perhaps the Pale King had always been right, and they simply weren’t good  _ enough. _

A thought to fester, like an enraged Goddess, loud in their minds but unseen and quiet to any beholder. Vessel of the Radiance, once, now Vessel of discarded hopes and faith and pain, indescribable pain they felt even now in the darkened abode Hornet had tucked them in and tended to their wounds.

Time, once more, was an unknown thing. The only thing keeping them from being in a suffocating, unbearable darkness was that the house had windows, however small they were - everything was small to them - but from it, they could see a lamp post, harbouring the charged lumaflies that beckoned their uncharged brethren to come revel against the translucent surface. It cast enough light into the house, and it was enough for them to make out the shapes of the once-abandoned furniture now dusted and arranged in some functional manner. They had enough time to become acquaintances with it too, with the oval shape of the home and the trapdoor that led to an yet uncleaned basement.

Hornet promised them she would make it livable - in this building, the Vessel could do little besides crawl and attempt to stand, but bowed enough that their shell risked hitting either the ceiling or the floor. To remain still was no difficult task, but rather one they were very talented at. They relished it in a morbid manner, like the lumaflies basked on the glow of their charged and entrapped kin, the numbness of doing as told and doing as it was natural being the closest thing to fulfillment and peace that either bug could feel. So they indulged in it, unthinking of whatever it might enable in them, whatever long-term suffering it might provoke to simply imagine that for a lingering moment they were doing exactly what they were supposed to, and so far, succeeding.

Whenever they weren’t indulging in that, they were tracing blackened fingers over themselves, chasing away the disbelief that denied they were free, or even in control of themselves. They felt it, where the infection had eaten at their side and nearly half of their upper body, making standing upright an impossible task, movements stiffened wherever void had solidified. For it too had been something sculptured, for the Void had no shape and the only truly organic part of them being their shell, everything else yet another purpose ingrained in the portion of darkness that resided within the body of the dead. From once an nondescript limb, touching the floor without making a noise, only hard enough at parts so to grip and move in a way that mimicked a bug, but didn’t quite weight like one, to now this; a pseudo exoskeleton, like any other bug, with long and lithe legs that used to click as they walked in the halls of the White Palace, plates that coated every finger, separated every knuckle down to the delicate claws. 

Void, mimicking life, as it was made to do. They wondered if they could ever heal, and Hornet had asked them the same, but they left her without an answer, head unmoving, sometimes coming to rest on the cushions of a bedding she made for them to rest their shell. They had pushed it to let it rest under the glow of the lumafly lamp, and she hadn’t complained despite it being a rather inconvenient place to put it. Besides, she rarely stayed long. If she slept, it was not here - she came with gentle words and a meal they didn’t eat. She checked their bandages, and caught up to them with her plans. They wondered how many of those were simply because staying with them was a painful activity, and how many of them truly could not wait.

But they weren’t here to make demands, no. In fact, they weren’t sure why they were here, nor what for. There was simply a feeling in them, held in suspension, coercing them to wait. And wait they did, for who knows how long. Wait they did, until they felt it.

No longer in suspension, it now walked. That feeling was easy to mistake and don’t know how to name, but they knew what it was the moment it rekindled in them; the Void sung its songless tune, a vibration with no melody or rhythm that he felt stirring within them, shaking the still liquid. Their within had never been entirely still, but with the Radiance within, it had raged within the confines of their shell. Even now, it rippled, perturbed, unwilling to settle as it rocked back and forth. The Pale King used to have a way of seeing it, feeling it somehow, stirring within them. The Void rebelling, yet not quite, for it had no mind to think nor feelings to act upon. It was a disbalance, he would say - nothing that training couldn’t settle. And training had settled indeed, as had the lessons and the speeches the Vessel had stood through. The mournful praise it had been regarded in, the prized offspring, treated with regalies like a blessing in the shape of a prince.

To think of him was an unmeasurable pain. A far more rational part of them forced unto them the questioning, brewed from fears, pain and betrayal: had all that been a mournful display of love, the earning to let them know they were thoroughly adored from their birth to their end, the end justifying the means yet oh so loathed - or was it simply the funeral rites that the Pale King’s own wavering morals constructed, regarding them well simply because he could not treat with unkindness even the lowest of bugs, and everything he adorned his Vessel with had been only the ceremonial vests of the ritual that truly had his devotion, but not his heart. What were they? A sacrificial beast, or a loved offspring? They believed they had been both, yet that was too controversial to be, thus they knew they ought to have been one. But which? 

Unknowing corroded them for ages, as long as their imprisonment had held. But they couldn’t give it strength over them now, no. Not when they knew what was it that ressonated from below Dirtmouth.

The Vessel turned their massive head, inclinating it so they could move within the small abode, crawling from their slumped, curled up bundle of sharp limbs and white shell, so they could kneel by the front door and pry it open with their fingers. Their nail was in miserable disrepair, so was their cloak once scintillating white, but they felt bare without it. Remnants of a time where the King by all means hoped to conceal the way his light could be seen reflected in the shells of every wall, every stone and every bug, all but his Vessel, that seemed to soak up the light and give nothing in turn. Their great nail served little for defense, they thought, but greatly to help the haunched-back Vessel to distribute their weight once they exited the building, and stretched themselves upright as much as they could. Not much. Their blackened body only moved so far, and their balance was severely mismatched.

Nonetheless, empty eyes beheld the diminutive settlement above the Kingdom, the light from the lamp posts unfiltered by aged glass, they could imagine it was warmth that they felt, if only the winds weren’t the exact opposite, making their way from the howling cliffs and making their cloak wave against their legs, a discrete movement that for a being used to being so idle, was the only sign they were still alive and not in fact a statue of some sort. They walked, listening vaguely to the crunch of sand and leaf under their feet as they made it to the edges of the town. Endless night surrounded Dirtmouth and the roaming Vessel, and at this hour - whatever hour it may be - Elderbug had already retreated into his own home, only the dim lights of the other houses distinguishing this tiny settlement from the graveyard beyond. 

They didn’t need to wander too far. From a well,  _ they _ climbed up. 

Every inch as small as they were when they abandoned the Abyss, all as if to spite the former King and make a statement out of size mattering naught when the matter was the strength of one’s spirit and the resilience of their shell. They knew those horns - they had haunted the Vessel’s dreams too, like many other dreams. They imagined that the Void could answer their belowing, join them in their suffering, aid them if only the Hollow Knight could howl loud enough, but never they made a sound, nor had they ever heard an answer, at least not awake. But they had dreamt of this sibling before. Through her eyes, they too could see the pathways this one tore through Hallownest, the battles they fought, the truths they sought and found. 

They had done it, clearly. They had found them, Hollow Knight and Radiance both, perhaps through some other gateway besides the Temple’s doors, and caused them to wake unbound and blissfully hollow. It had found some other way, that neither the Pale King nor Hornet nor the Dreamers had discovered. And they returned triumphant, gleaming nail petite, ghosted by a flying bug of black and red and  _ nightmare _ of its same size. 

The Hollow Knight owed them everything and a bit more. Were there words in the entirety of Hallownest and all the distant kingdoms that could describe this that they felt? Thankfulness, laced with an unmatched kind of sorrow, loathing everything that they hadn’t done to aid their sibling, everything they had permitted to come to pass. They had nothing else to grant in return but their life, and even so, it meant little as it was. They had been rewarded a post-mortem and yet, they were ungrateful enough to don’t even know what to do with it. A bittersweet emotion, yet so genuine, to try and simmer it all to a sentence, even if they could utter it was a fool’s errand.

The end of their great nail found the floor before them, and slowly the Hollow Knight dropped to one knee, their head lowering into a bow until it was parallel to the ground underneath. 

Not a moment passed, however, before they felt small hands touch the tip of one of their horns, slowly and faintly lifting them, so to bring up the Knight’s head. As they followed the gesture, they were met with the hollow of the other vessel’s eyes. Empty, yet appearances betrayed. Everything in this small sibling of theirs betrayed their appearances. 

Their words in the Hollow Knight’s head stood as proof of such. They sounded immensely soft, without the chains of having ever been hollow, even less bothered pretending such.  _ “Stand. You bow to no one.” _

* * *

When Hornet arrived, a lumafly lantern had been placed on the floor in the middle of the small, circular house. At a corner, a small kitchen existed, only large enough to contain a few cabinets, a counter and a rather unimpressive oven they had no logs to lit up. A table had been pushed out of the way of the rather massive vessel that took most of the space and at another side, a hammock hung from side to side of the house’s structure, above the trapdoor. 

Over it, sat the smaller vessel, with their short legs touching before them. Next to them, curled up like a bundle, was a bug that easily equated the vessel’s size. A winged creature, with tendrils for wings and large whitish eyes. It had whined all the way into the humble little home they were in now, only to curl up once their companion sat down, and it hadn’t let out a sound ever since. It hadn’t been in the Hollow Knight’s dreams like their sibling had, but alas, with the arrival of their smaller sibling, the larger vessel was beginning to see there was much more that they didn’t know. 

What they could know had been discussed at length, however. What and how and why, and everything in between. They had never  _ talked _ , either one of them for that matter, yet here they were. Not a sound made, but the conversation stretched at length in their heads, all that was needed was a thought louder and a bit more assertive than the rest, and the other could catch, as if anything solid enough to cause a ripple to the Void within, the other could see, sense it within their own inky hearts. Despite understandable, the comparison was faulty - the Pale King had never heard those thoughts of his Hollow Knight like the other vessel could. For if he could, perhaps they would have been spared. 

Or had he heard, and chose to sacrifice them anyway to buy himself time? These thoughts festered in the back of their mind even if they were as focused as they could be in the here and now, and in the voice of their sibling. A voice yet not, it was a pattern, as unique as a face or a voice yet never meant for anyone’s ears. Their sibling was courageous and simple, gentle and determined, and they sounded everything like that. As secure in Dirtmouth as they were in the face of any danger, standing still before the blinding gaze of the Radiance. They supposed the smaller Vessel knew many feelings, all of them perhaps, all but fear.

They wished they were more like that. In comparison, they were but a mournful tone, quiet and low, a word or a hum, uncertain at times, like a murmur where thought merged into another, far too entangled with other thoughts and a myriad of emotions that surprised even their owner. Their sibling often asked them to repeat themselves, and they did with an apology.

Nonetheless, their conversation had been enjoyable, stretching itself for what felt like hours, although the larger vessel’s understanding of time might no longer be what it once was. Then, in a moment, in between a word and the other, the door opened, and it was Hornet’s shell at the doorway. As her eyes met the pale shell of the smallest vessel, recognition struck her quickly, her features harbouring all the expression they lacked, surprise and tension visible on the fingers she laced around her needle that she quickly put it aside as she walked in. They had never heard the weaver hold a lighter tone to her voice, but they didn’t doubt it for a moment that what she hid underneath the surface was joy. For one of their kind, nonetheless. “You have done it. You’ve found another way.”

It still puzzled them that their gendered sibling of mortal half -gray and beastly weaver half - could find it in herself to cast a caring thought towards them. Perhaps she couldn’t recall it, but the Hollow Knight could. The Daughter of Hallownest had been a quietly sung lullaby once among the lowly born, particularly those emerging from Deepnest and that had sat for long enough as the weavers spun their silk at the tone of whatever song they chose to fill their silence with. Deepnest’s pride and joy was Herrah’s daughter, and then, the fate of the beast was yet unknown except for Herrah herself. There was only joy, and said daughter had been raised with the privilege of free passage from one side of the Kingdom to the other, taking the best knights as teachers. They couldn’t imagine however that once the fate of her mother was known and Herrah was taken from her twice, once to seal, another to free, that she could have any sort of pity towards a vessel, even less a liking.

Impossibilities could stack, they supposed. Whom were they to do guesswork and imagine knowing what exactly lived in the little weaver’s heart? They barely knew their own heart, to begin with. 

She closed the door behind herself, and the smaller vessel sprung to their feet, startling their sleeping ward as they did so.  _ “Ah, Hornet, you wouldn’t believe it even .” _

All of the vessel’s thoughts and unbridled determination went unheard by its destinatary, yet the Hollow Knight heard it all within their own shell. A pity, truly, that their sibling couldn’t explain it to her as they wished so much. Yet, somethings didn’t require a voice or a message too explicit, the smaller vessel springing to their feet was enough for Herrah’s daughter to take a guess that despite all the fates one could expect out of someone out for such a dire fate, not only did they achieve everything they sought to achieve, but also returned with a thousand stories they wished they could tell. 

No mind to think, yet they thought. No heart to feel, yet they felt. No voice to cry their suffering, yet… That seemed to be the only thing right. The Hollow Knight retreated their legs further away from the center of the house, making room for their siblings and little red ward. The place had never been large, but it was now growing cramped. But the Hollow Knight couldn’t find it in themselves to complain, no. The lumafly lamp light wasn’t warm, yet the house now surely was, for the short while this would last. 

“I wonder how it was done, although the details are but a boon, the true blessing is seeing the results myself.” Her hand moved vaguely, as if gesturing to both the Hollow Knight as the world out there, beyond the window. Either one was certainly enough proof of the smallest vessel’s achievements, who being bound in a diminutive shell they were outstandingly mighty. Both their siblings were strength and endurance in small packages, while themselves, well, the Hollow Knight was falling apart. If not in their frayed mind, then most certainly in their rotten body. But alas, there was no concern to be had. The mission was completed, their post-mortem might last a month or years or a day, either way was far more time than they thought they would ever have. No time at all was all they thought they would have. “Is there something I should know about the end of the Old Light? Is it truly gone, or am I exceeding myself, and there is still the threat of dawn?”

Their smallest vessel bolted into action, pulling their mothwing cloak to the side and over an inexisting shoulder so they could have a look at the bag underneath; it was such an interesting sight, a Vessel with personal belongings, as any bug. And they weren’t a few, but rather a handful. Charms like those of nail shamans, of the powerful dead or the eloping of Gods littered the inner breast of one side of the cloak, and many more remained within their small bag. There were maps, quill and pen, and a few idols that clanked against the table from the manner the vessel carelessly emptied the bag over it. Geo clinked delicately as it poured, and from the very bottom, they produced a rolled parchment, perhaps to add to that map of theirs, or to the journal they also seemed to keep. 

As the smallest vessel dropped back on the floor with haste, it was easy to guess what it was that they were going to do. Hornet voiced it, however, as she made way to their small kitchen. “You’ll write it down? Very well. For once, we can spare ourselves the time.” 

To answer her, the vessel nodded their head quickly before starting to work on the paper, pen dipping carefully on the ink before they began their work. The sound was a pleasant one, as was that of Hornet bringing on shellwood she must have picked on her way here. The season wasn’t a cold one, not yet, but the last few days had seen plenty of harsher winds. The elder of the town seemed to have retreated for longer into his home, and the Hollow Knight could only but guess this must be the beginning of autumn, a guess of higher accuracy if they caught a glimpse of Greenpath and the Queen’s Gardens, both things far too unlikely in the near future for them to keep feeding hopes.

They were irrevocably, unmistakably, irredeemably still lingering in the past, were they not? They fed the notion that somewhere out there, the kingdom they had been sealed to preserve still remained the very same, with its vast libraries and beautifully well-kept gardens. They fed the belief that bugs still dotted the streets with their beautifully painted shells and exquisitely woven cloths. That there was still music in Hallownest, and all these things they weren’t supposed to think of and feel towards were still out there, just like they had kept them company in their imprisonment. If they had to think to hold their focus, focus which held them together, then this was what they chose to think of. They thought of the Pale King’s beautiful kingdom, and the responsibility a wyrm carried in their pale shoulders, at times making his crowned head drop when he thought no one was looking. The nights spent without rest, the elegance through his impatience, the humbleness in the pride in which he presented them to Hallownest, once, and the manner in which he glowed when he heard the bugs of Hallownest celebrate their newest Knight.

Precious memories, those. Regardless of what came to be after, if they were genuine in their meaning or not. They were theirs, and the Hollow Knight hoarded them deep within the Void of their carapace. If only the King had seen that his vessel’s adoration for them was exactly that, the sign that there was more to it than only a walking body. If only…

Hornet broke down the silence by dragging a pillow over and joining them on the floor, a cup on her hands steaming lethargically with a murky liquid. Tea, if the Hollow Knight was to guess. The smaller vessel’s ward, the odd red bug named Grimmchild - implication that there was a father Grimm - had taken to the air as soon as they had moved, but now that they were writing, he once more chose to settle down. The new perch of choice however was directly against the mothwing cloak of the smallest vessel, unbothered by their movements as they wrote as the Grimmchild watched the paper from over the vessel’s shoulder.

The explanation about that one bug had been brief. ‘ _ A friend’s son. I could bring him with me only when I plan to get things for his father but he is great company.’ _ Great company. Was that truly enough explanation for a father to permit their child to follow another around, unknowing of what dire circumstances they might face in a half infested, half hostile kingdom? A mad bug, surely. To his luck, the Grimmchild was in capable hands,  _ God-slaying claws,  _ but no thanks to the discerning abilities of said father.

It was a morbid amusement that came to them when they realised that despite most, they thought themselves in a position where they supposedly knew how a good father was like. The  _ joke. _

“...You can simmer it down to the important parts.” The silence must have gotten to Hornet, be as patient as she must be, the suspense took their toll on her. They couldn’t blame her - a lifetime awaiting the fall of Hallownest, the breaking of the seals and either the end of dawn or the prolonging of its stasis, and once it finally happened, it had done so out of her sights. Her desperation to know was something to feel in the air. Not a scent nor a taste. Something else, another kind of sensibility, perhaps unique to the vessels, perhaps unique to the Hollow Knight themselves. Perhaps, only an impression, grown out of experience. “Or give it to me in parts, so I can read while you write the rest.”

The smallest vessel only raised their head to her for a moment, but even so, there was a little of sharp wit and jest in their words, balanced by a discreet gentleness.  _ “And you say you can spare the time.” _ Despite their answer that she could not hear, they handed her the first paper after a few more symbols inscribed, then picked another and began writing the continuation. Hornet dried her hand against her finely woven red cloak and with all of her attention, she began reading. She didn’t need to do so out loud for the Hollow Knight to guess which part of the story she was at.

For it was a rather difficult story to make sense of, after all. 

A small vessel climbed off from the Abyss, and from there on, they had been picking up clues and shards of the Kingdom’s story. About how an old Goddess created a sickness to spite a King, who in turn imprisoned her within a vessel much like themselves. Three Dreamers guarded the Temple’s gates, and that alone was a mystery - how to reach the mind of one asleep? So many mysteries paved their path, and they made a habit of discovering their way by leaving no stone unturned. In such a manner, they discovered far more than the answers they sought. 

In such a turned stone, there was a coffin in the Junk Pit, and within, the body of a bug in a deep slumber. Within her mind, an entire world. The Hollow Knight had never heard of Godseekers, nor anything like them. But the smaller vessel had a penchant for detail, and they could trust their writing to make sense of what they were in a few words. A group of people residing in a palace of dreams called the Godhome, seeking Gods whom they could attune to. A symbiosis in which the Gods attuned granted them wisdom and made sense of their life in the dream, permitted them to bask in their immortality and splendor, and in turn, their engagement with said Gods made them stronger. Gods was a loose term - even the common bug the smaller vessel found on their way had a place in the Godhome, and their pantheon wasn’t a place whose inhabitants were selected by birthright, but rather by power.

In parts, it was an accident. With the Dreamers dead, the smallest vessel had a fateful battle coming forth and they wanted to ready themselves. What a better place to do so than the mind and pantheon of a people who through focus and battle, could bring forth the dreams of the mightiest? For said vessel had done it all, visited it all,  _ seen it all _ . The White Palace, placed in the mind of a Kingsmold, the birthplace and eggshell they had emerged from, stillborn. They had bathed in the Void and returned unscathed, every discovery making them understand themselves better, making them more powerful and resourceful along the way. They were not afraid of practice - preparation stacked could be no disadvantage.

Through the Godhome, the Godseekers bridged a path to the Hollow Knight's dreams. They supposed those weren't simple dreams, after all. Through the Pure Vessel, a bridge to the Radiance. The Hollow Knight fought the Radiance or their infected siblings a thousand times in their own dreams, that one battle hadn’t been any different for them. Losing too was something they were immensely familiar with, and meeting their end on the nail of the Ghost of Hallownest was as ordinary as any other day. Littered with suffering and regret and unheard wails, but ordinary, nonetheless. Suffering was something that cared naught for time, and they had panicked, they had struggled, they had done it all already within their sarcophagy. The Goddess had witnessed them howl and heard them beg. Everything remained the same - not only they were mute, but chains were deaf. 

Yet, the outcome had been different. For a moment, they were heard. In a place much like the birthplace, something that they had been sure had been conjured at the height of their desperation, for a moment they thought they were heard. They exchanged glances with their sibling, at the same height and surrounded by all others. Like a puzzle, where all shells were mismatched, somehow they fit all together and the last piece had been found. Them, and the Ghost of Hallownest. All of them, around a single unbeating heart that they did not understand what it was nor what it did, but it beckoned to them, and it was what they felt when their sibling had been ascending the Forgotten Crossroads. 

In the dreams the Hollow Knight howled, their siblings answered, all of them, themselves no longer a drop of ink within a shell but together, they were sea, impossible night that the Pale King used to hide underneath his palace and drape with cloaks over the body of his Vessel. This was the dream in which they won, and they didn’t feel mute, a good dream for a change, and when they woke up, they did so on the floor. Seals weaned, and so did chains. At that same time, a new God took its rightful place atop the pantheon of those mysterious Godseekers - a being that only existed there, through Godly focus embodied to surround a Voidheart. 

Their sibling had confessed that they didn’t know much more than that. How was it that they called and the Void could unite itself as it had. They hadn’t tried it again since they had emerged from the Godseeker’s dreams, but it didn’t feel to them it was something that they could simply snap their fingers and do so again, for whatever reason they conjured. The Void was littered with so many like them, with different capacities to focus, some of them capable of wearing their shells, others incapable of even shaping shades, choosing instead to be one drop of many in the bottom of the Abyss. It wasn’t only the Ghost of Hallownest’s focus that held their union in a single shade. Those without any were easier to summon, but those that had… They were as singular as any other vessel. At the end, they weren’t unlike other bugs, even if they shared a bond - few tasks could bring so many souls together, in unison and synchrony towards another goal.

When the smaller vessel broke through the Godseeker's dream, their focus no longer held, and they retreated to their shell and body, the Void bleeding back through stone into the abyss, their siblings back at their birthplace and resting grounds. But for a moment, they all lived and fought, those that wore shell, those that were shade, those that were nothing. For a moment, for a very brief moment, they were one. 

The last paper sat at Hornet's hand for the longest while in comparison to all others. They could see why - what made little sense for her made no more sense to the Hollow Knight across her or for the Ghost of Hallownest, but alas, it had been done. There was no amount of prose that could embellish the impossible, nor enough retelling that could make it anymore clear. It was what it had been. The aftermath of impossibility was a very odd thing indeed, it regarded none and rewarded a life that felt like abandonment, leaving bugs to their own devices, deaf and blind to what lay ahead, seeking threads to find ends. None obvious was at sight. No conclusion worthwhile. No further understanding of what had happened, what were the costs, what lay ahead. It was as if the vessels simply dreamt at one point, a rather intense dream to be fair, and when they woke, the world had been shaped to suit what that half of their nature cherished. The endless night, with no threat of dawn. 

Now, they were supposed to pretend this had been a possibility all along that they simply had never seen, and somehow they ought to continue. Their existence that once served a purpose, now ought to find another, and move on. The endless night beckoned, and none of them cried anymore. The Void was unthreatened within them all, and rest was an option, should they choose to join the Abyss. There was no further closure to be had, and the Hollow Knight, who never had been given a choice before, now they were free to do nearly anything, yet found themselves immobile for days.

"...I had no idea this was a way. Your explanation doesn’t make things very clear, I’m sure you know." The weaver said, and the smaller vessel only nodded slightly. They had seen it through and perhaps it made more sense to them than to anyone else, supposedly it was around them that the Void could unite, the pivot to embodiment, what lived in their head as  _ The Voidheart _ . The Hollow Knight however, despite supposedly having taken part of it, didn’t understand it entirely. That hadn’t been the first dream they had of their siblings nor fighting the Radiance, sometimes the Goddess herself, sometimes she wore other shells, even their sibling’s shells. She seemed to take a particular liking for desecrating the spawn of the Pale King with herself. And sometimes, they fought not, and instead sat in silence, watching Hallownest decay through the eyes of the infected, the Hollow Knight but a silent and unwilling beholder.

They would have paid more attention had they known that dream was different than any other, but it admittedly hadn’t felt like it was, until they won. A new Higher Being was born, a piece unknown and of an existence too fickle for them to think they would ever see it again. Perhaps for the best - what was it that could bring focus to such a fragmented Void was beyond their understanding. The odds had aligned just enough to permit this impossibility to occur and it seemed far-fetched it would ever happen again. 

If their sibling expected the aftermath to be more glorious and more awe-striking than this, then the Hollow Knight would be sorry to inform them that there was nothing after failure, and nothing after success either. There was nothing but the emptiness of any purpose, of any foreseeable greater task, and an emptiness of direction. The future was a true void that neither of them could tame. The aftermath was this; a minimal percentage of survivors, roaming alone and confused in the carcass of Hallownest. It was a dusty, small home in a village on the brink of extinction, that poorly housed the descendants of a once great and bright Wyrm. 

The silence was an infection on it's own, as Hornet eyed the paper one last time, before placing it down as well. They wondered what it was that she felt and they could not read in these dark but reflective eyes of hers. Black like beads, they glistened like jewelry at the light of the lumafly lantern. Her tea remained untouched, and no longer steaming. "...To think, I've been hoping and looking forward to this day my whole life, yet now that it is here, I find myself stuck where I stand."

Her confession was strangely out of place of a bug like her, yet, familiar in a manner that the Hollow Knight wasn’t expecting it to be. So intoxicatingly genuine that the vessels could only but exchange a glance, through the slightest tilt of their shells before looking back to her. She clarified by standing, straightening her red cloak with a few decisive pats to the finely woven fabric, removing any dust that might have been clinging to the fabric. "While a bug breathes in Hallownest, then the Kingdom is not yet dead. If it can be rebuilt or not, it isn’t up to me but to its inhabitants to decide. My duty is to guard it, and it still holds.”

To hear her speak, every inch of her soul dutiful like the Pale King, every inch of her carapace ruthless and proud like Herrah, it was as inspiring as it was a mournful thing to behold. The world out there was not the one they recalled departing from, there was no Pale King waiting for them in his white palace and white halls. All that there was left of him were these memories of his and nobody else’s, accursed to see their sire in their sibling’s resourcefulness and their sister’s dutifulness. They were cursed to see the signs of him but not the Wyrm; when emotions like these came up, they had grown to accept to a degree that it was a result of them being flawed, unsuitable to the task given to them. But they didn’t accept yet, didn’t even feed the thought that the name of this desperation might be grief, and what they sought in the world, the only other purpose they might be willing to carry, was towards the goal of a reunion that would never be. 

They wished they saw what Hornet saw. For them, Hallownest seemed in its last breaths, enough that aiding it to continue so seemed like an unmerciful act. There was no room for the living in this gigantic carcass of a Kingdom - in the endless night, perhaps now the Void was the only thing unbothered, the only thing unrivalled. Their siblings must be at peace, finally, or not. Either way, Hallownest was no Kingdom to save, not when it lacked the Wyrm that gave common bug thought beyond instinct through his order and light. That wasn’t something that could be mimicked by anyone less than a Higher Being. 

Hallownest and the Hollow Knight were both at the same place, they thought. Having been feasted upon by the infection, there was a race to see what would crumble first, their body or their minds. Anyone’s guess if today was their last, or if it would come in a month, or perhaps another year. The endless night was peaceful, truly, but also terminal. Hopeless. 

They lost themselves to thought, their fingers only but faintly tracing the eaten and vacant spot on their side as they tilted their head towards the lamp post outside. The light was pale, slightly tinted blue, casting cold shadows on the Hollow Knight’s cracked shell. Such a large bug they were, that the slightest movement felt enormous. They had spent still for so long through this interaction that when they moved, all eyes in the room fell on them and they solidified where they were seated once again. They were so large, perhaps their sibling and sister for a moment forgot they lived and weren't part of the environment. How many massive beasts had they seen the dead shells of? They mustn’t be any different. 

The Hollow Knight thought they wouldn’t grace them with another word, but Hornet did. She stepped forward, slow and careful like the first time she had approached them. Wary of having to use her needle, but now that seemed more like a wariness of their reaction. They knew what that was for - her hands were warm from holding her teacup, and they felt it on the sides of their sensitive shell. On the brink of breaking, anything felt too harsh against it. The wind cutting, a touch always too heavy. With it cracked, everything else was numb. Their sight only came from a single eye, their limbs were unfeeling. A vessel didn’t feel physical pain, but they used to be able to feel the wind properly, its temperature having always been warmer than their own. They used to feel textures, and they used to rub the edge of their white cloak between their claws before wearing it. Now, they could barely feel their hand on their eaten side, that hand feeling like somebody else’s, their body somebody else’s entirely. 

Hornet’s touch frightened, but also comforted. Perhaps it was for the best that they had no room to move away from it. “I could not do anything back then. I did not know what fate awaited you until it was all done.”

“Nonetheless, you two are family, the only I have. Knight and Ghost of Hallownest, your duties towards the fate of this Kingdom are fulfilled. What either of you shall do with it, falls only to you. I will aid where I can.” The warmth in her voice was discrete, unexpected, and in a manner, highly unbecoming. Herrah had never been so heartful, even if her Daughter’s display of it now was minimal. The Hollow Knight couldn’t name it a bad thing, no. She was everything good that the Beast had been, and a little more that composed Hornet as herself, unique and apart from her mother. Perhaps it also was for the best that she was different from her preceding Dreamer. 

As her hands retreated from their shell, they permitted their head to turn slightly towards the smaller vessel in the room. Their thoughts were too quiet for the Hollow Knight to hear, but nonetheless some resolve seemed to come to them. They began tucking their belongings back into their satchel with far more care than when they had emptied it, now with some practical haste to their movements, as if it just thought of a very nice place where they must be right now. Hornet seemed to notice it too. “Determination is something you wear well, although I can never guess where it points you to.”

The smaller vessel only pointed to the Hollow Knight. The meaning of such a gesture was lost to the appointed vessel, but the weaver seemed to understand a little more of it. “Take care of one another. Make this your home, if you wish. I shall return here as long as it is a place either of you return to.”

A base of operations. They wondered if this was something their sibling ever had after the kingdom began to crumble within her grasp. She seemed like the wandering sort, that travelled alone and fought alone and rested very little. Not the sort to stay in a place twice for whatever reason. Did the mobility give her some peace of mind? Did it hunt fear and weakness alike? They hoped not. Their gendered sibling was immensely beautiful in her strengths, a terrifying warrior of silk and needle. When they permitted her to drag them through the Kingdom’s Crossroads and tuck them in this little home, they hadn’t thought they could sometime start being a weight on her and her lifestyle. Now, they were starting to consider it. 

Could they harbour one single good thought? Only one would suffice. 

They supposed they could only but trust her to know her own limits, and to know how far she was willing to carry the weight of a rotten sibling, where she drew her lines. Time was an elusive mistress, and where it felt like ages had passed since they had been imprisoned, for somethings it felt like it had been only a season ago. And they remembered, as if it was something they were reuniting with at the end of the day. The Knights were an exquisite bunch, travellers and wanderers and mighty warriors, who too chose to carry weights and have feuds that made little sense for a King, even less to a Kingdom. Nonetheless, not understanding hadn’t kept the Wyrm from respecting it, to a degree. He would always answer with an eerie monotone whenever inquired about his Knights’ personal goals and woes.

_ Their heart beats for Hallownest. They carry out our battles and woes when time comes. May they carry their own at times, too. _

The lulling comfort of recalling those words in the voice they had once heard it in was an addictive slump to fall into. For a moment, they were not quite here but there, in a place where everything made spotless sense and everything had a purpose, and where the future was dire but at the very least known, and they had hoped, in secret, but hoped nonetheless they would see it again. The Hollow Knight wasn’t so unknowing of the nature of some thoughts and emotions so to miss the hints that this was very far from something they should relish on often. The bill would inevitably come due, in some form they couldn’t predict. Their relation with those memories weren’t a healthy one, they were making an infection out of it, and welcoming its rot into them.

They determined, however, that this was a problem from themselves of that unknown morrow, them of the future. The Hollow Knight of today relished in a good thought they fabricated to themselves, as synthetic as it is, as induced by a delusion as it may be. It made them think of their King, sire and ruler, and the way they had always been kind and fair to his Knights. They thought of Hornet once more, and decided that she ought to know best indeed when she brought her from that Temple. What they could offer however, was to unfurl their arm from under their tattered cloak, and slowly move it towards the hammock she had hanged on the side of the home but was yet to use it. Both siblings and the little red ward followed their movement carefully, and how could they not. As painfully still as the Hollow Knight was, every movement was an event, every attempt to communicate was unheard of.

She understood what they meant when a finger gestured to the hammock, the slightest of tilts coming to their massive shell. “Very well, Knight. You do have a point.”

They had expected some sort of argument to come from this, but there was none. Their assumption had been that she hadn’t slept since they emerged from the Temple, and by the unexisting resistance in the weaver, it seemed the far-fetched assumption had been correct. She put her needle near the hammock, her bag underneath it, nicely tucked out of the vessel’s way. Her hands returned to the now cold tea she had brewed before and she drank it quickly, certainly more of a desire to don’t see it being wasted than an actual wish to consume it cold. Wherein she moved slowly, as if finally realising her own tiredness, the other vessel in the home was in a methodical process of swapping the charms in the breast of their mothwing cloak by some others. An awful lot of combining and attempting to make it all fit in the limited space of their cloak.

The Hollow Knight had only but heard of charms, and seen the one the King carried with himself. One half of it, another of his lady, the physical sign of their compromise. As time passed and they grew, the King spent more and more time with it on his hands, rather than looking at the Vessel it was raising. They knew why. It was by then that the White Lady had informed him of her wish and plan to bind herself forevermore, diminishing herself from sight and appearances. A root without the means to spread was an hibernating organism, not much better than dead. Which meant that even if he succeeded, the King would have his kingdom, but without his lady at his side.

_ No cost too great.  _ True, yet knowing so didn’t make it hurt any less. There was no comfort in those words.

They wondered what all these charms of their sibling was for in the first place. Did they have equally profound meanings, or were they more like souvenirs they took from the places they went and the people they met? Important events wherein strong lives began or ended tended to produce charms like these. The quantity that the smallest vessel owned was enough of a statement that they had truly dwelled into this Kingdom and witnessed all there was for them to witness, learn all there was for them to learn, and battle all there was for them to battle. They were most certainly donning them like a Knight donned armour before riding into another battle, plentiful thought was employed for either task.

The Hollow Knight only wondered what battle was it that the smaller vessel was armouring themselves for.  _ “Is it unbecoming to ask where you are headed to?” _

That made the vessel raise their head as they adjusted their bad under their mothwing cloak. Was that a mantis claw underneath it? And the tip of monarch wings? Both were items built to mimic the resources of specific bugs, tools that marked the identity of tribes and their people within the kingdom. Back then it was unthinkable that someone would have both items; the monarch wings, something the noble but fragile bugs wore to resemble their King further, and the mantis claw, something the tribe handed to non-mantids when those had the right of passage through their lands, thus granted to only a select few.

But they supposed time had indeed passed, and so must the memory of bugs. All they were now were relics at best, and tools for their sibling to wield.  _ “Where we are going, you mean. There is so much to do.” _

The Hollow Knight questioned themselves thrice every thought, and at least a dozen of times before they took any step. Thus why immobility seemed to be so common for them, they supposed. But something they would say was established and solid, far more than anything else they knew, was that Hallownest was a decaying Kingdom, and as such, what was it that could be so interesting out there for their siblings to feel an earning to go and meet it? What was it that was there to even do? It certainly must be the Hollow Knight who was at fault for not seeing it.  _ “Forgive me if I do not see it.” _

_ “This is Hallownest. You trip in things that need to be done every step you take.”  _ The smallest vessel explained, walking to the red bug and with their small hands, they helped the flying bug to take to the air in the small confine of this home. The Grimmchild complained, but alas, all sounds that he let out sounded like whining and complaints, which somehow the smaller vessel labelled as ‘ _ lovable _ ’. They wondered how he could be considered great company, and if it was truly so, that spoke volumes of the state of Hallownest and its inhabitants.  _ “Besides, I would like to show it to you, and to see you well. I also think I can help you heal. Let’s go?” _

As simple as that, they wanted the Hollow Knight to up and follow them to whatever location they just thought of. The smaller vessel certainly wasn’t blind to the condition of their sibling, how could they when they saw them moving outside not too long ago, yet, that didn’t seem to stop them from requesting them to follow anyway. Hornet was correct, unsurprisingly. Resolve and determination were worn finely by their sibling, even if that did little to explain how things would unfold when the Ghost of Hallownest stood and decided to see things through.

_ “You are welcome to try.”  _ And they were, they supposed. If this was the fruitless battle their sibling chose to trouble themselves with, the least they could offer them was the willingness to permit them such. Should a request befall them, they would meet it. It was the least one could do after all they had done for them and Hallownest. No, they doubted their sibling had prevented its end, of either the Hollow Knight or of Hallownest, nonetheless they were grateful for the post-mortem granted. Never had they hoped to meet their siblings, both of them. Never had they hoped to be heard by anyone but an enraged Goddess. Those were decent parting gifts from this world, should their stay end come morrow. If that was their wish, the Hollow Knight would drag themselves on the caves below to whatever place they chose to take them to.

The Ghost of Hallownest took no offense in the Knight’s comment, unfazed by it entirely as they determined they were more than ready to go. With the Grimmchild already airborne and with their finely pure nail on their side, there was perhaps no one safe in the entirety of Hallownest from that small vessel and their unbreakable will.  _ “You underestimate my stubbornness.” _

Maybe they did indeed. But they weren’t against being proven wrong.


	2. Of Shade and Shell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kids, beware. This took a long while because it was meant to be a single chapter but it got too long, so I divided it. I will be posting the third whenever I finish editing it, so stay tuned.
> 
> I hope this chapter finds you well. Have fun!

_ "The hot spring can’t help you if you just stare at it." _

Sleep eventually caught up to Hornet, but it was anyone's guess if she would remain asleep for long enough to catch up to the rest long due. Either way, the moment the weaver closed her eyes, it was when the Ghost of Hallownest chose to leave. It was as if they were but a furtive thief in the night of Dirtmouth, rather than a known vessel indulging in their unquestioned right to come and go as they saw fit. Hallownest was currently lawless, clinging clumsily to whatever remnant of civilisation it had once sported, and there was no bug that would change it overnight and determine where one could come and go to, not even a bug as fierce as Hornet. 

The little Ghost faced her thrice, one of these battles in her mightiest dreams, and arose victor of the encounter. By no means did they fear their weaver sister, no, what brought the secretiveness to their movement was something else entirely - respect. Vessels only rested when they either chose to do so or when they exceeded their limits in combat, and at no other circumstance. But what granted them such an advantage had no part in her making, and for her to fall asleep so quickly and heavily, it must be the result of a very long time of deprivation of rest. The Hollow Knight didn't think she would ever oppose their roaming, but the chance of her wanting to accompany them was to be considered. The Ghost didn't want to risk it, nor the conflict that would come from it if either vessel insisted they were in good enough company with only the three of them - Grimmchild included - and she should rest rather than join their convoy.

For her sake, they scurried into the night as quietly as they could. The Hollow Knight had always been a rather flexible bug, known for fitting into halls not always thought out for bugs of their stature. They did miss their elegant flexibility now as they followed their sibling in a TikTik’s crawl throughout the Kingdom's Crossroads, or as it had been known as in this age, the  _ Forgotten Crossroads. _ Their sibling spent the route talking, albeit the information seemed hardly of any practical use. They commented on the trapped bugs they found and released. Commented on how the place had been infected in an astounding pace when the first Dreamer was ended. How these pathways used to be full of bugs, but now were crowded only by corpses, and rarely a minor flock of carrion eaters. Crawlids, vengeflies, all scurrying away at the sight of the two vessels and the fire Grimmchild spat whenever he spotted them. 

The closeness to the Black Egg Temple was a forlorn thing. They thought that panic would settle in them when they neared the place, as panic was what they usually felt when the thoughts of being trapped came to mind, but being here gave them no such emotion. There was a looming void whenever they thought of what stood some leagues above, an emptiness that seemed to shelter anything too vicious from emerging in them. Silence when anyone would scream. Stillness in front of danger. Denial when faced with unkind truths. The hollowness they had been trained to maintain had been hammered in them well enough that despite it being false, to feign it still granted some empty kind of peace, a numbness of all the things that were out there to harm them. A mantra to repeat, that could muffle everything else, at unknown costs to their mind, their heart, and the violently stirring Void within. 

Silence was their curse and only comfort, and they held on it as they inspected the hot spring their sibling brought them to. The ceiling was high enough for a change, and the Hollow Knight stood as straight as they could, which wasn't much. The end of their great nail was slightly buried on the dirt between their feet, fingers still and laced at its handle. They thought of the spring, its warm waters, and the first time they had ever seen one like this.

A Knight of the Pale King rarely stayed on the White Palace grounds. They were knighted for their bravery and strength, and entrusted with the Kingdom’s and the Pale Being’s wellbeing, but that rarely came from direct order and the weight of rule. It was a title rewarded by trust, the understanding that when Hallownest needed, they would do what was right. Some Knights delivered their duties through minimal but everyday tasks, like Dryya, who followed the White Lady wherever she went, the last line of defense within her private gardens, also the deadliest one. Others travelled, seeking to aid common bugs wherever they could, wherever they heard of troubles, such as the brilliant Ze’mer and the ever kind Hegemol.

As a result, they didn’t assemble often. But when they did, what an event they made out of it. To feign holloness before such joy was a nearly painful affair, nonetheless they did so, knowing no other manner to exist. But they watched, with veiled interest. They wondered how it was like to laugh like they did, how was the sound even made? How was it to go out there and face the Kingdom the vessel only but heard about, all of its beauties and all of its woes, something they were bred, born and trained to die for, but had never truly visited, for a being without feeling nor thought had no need for tourism, so they had rarely seen such things they described.

They shared a title with the Knights, but only that. Not the kinship, not even a proper understanding of how it was that something brought to the Palace so small, already had been given nail and entitled Knight. Knighthood preceding sacrifice and duty, given not as a reward, but rather as a foretold mourning gift, it was unheard of. Such things did not sit well with any Knight worth their weight. To give Knighthood to something a little better than a Kingsmold bordered offence to them, but of course they wouldn’t voice it before their King. And if it did think enough to serve and to fulfill duty, just enough to be worthy of Knighthood, where was the certainty that the Hollow Knight would agree to such a miserable fate it was being raised to? If so, was it even hollow enough to see it through?

Hegemol, soft spoken and kind, had been the only one to ever question it. He had never done a step wrong, nor uttered in their entire lives a single word to cause harm. It was the first time the vessel had ever seen anyone question the Wyrm and his wisdom, and the first time they had questioned their own hollowness. The thought had come without weight, rather bland, almost as if they could choose. They were so small then, as small as when they left the Abyss. They knew very little, and didn’t think ahead, if at all. But as the question of choice came to their mind, they wondered what they would prefer to be. Hollow as intended, and unworthy of Knighthood, or worthy of it but perhaps not exactly as envisioned. They thought such as if there was any good and foreseeable future in shedding away the expectation of being hollow, and simply  _ not be it. _

The King’s words broke their train of thought, a twinkling sound turned sharp, turned terminal, were enough for the Hollow Knight to never consider such a choice again.  _ “Hegemol, one of mighty five. It could never be if it was not exactly as I envisioned it. It is nothing but entirely hollow. The Knighthood bestowed is to the sacrifice it shall make, and the cost paid that it will never understand. I ask you to allow me as much.” _

The cost had been great indeed. No pale child roamed the Palace despite it being so thoroughly wished for. The White Lady refused, even after the Pure Vessel had been found.  _ Too haunting of a thought _ . The cost was a family, a kingdom’s subjects, dying in numbers too great for Hallownest’s majesty to make a return too soon, even after the seals were placed. The King’s decisions were a path of pain, diminishing his light, dropping his head on the hold of small, delicate claws. The future he foretold was grim and dark and disheartening, and at every turn another bill came due, another sacrifice to leech on his light. He mourned so much at the end. Mourned the emptiness of his halls, mourned the end of his lineage with him, mourned the woes of Hallownest and mourned the Teacher, Beast and Watcher. 

He sat alone, and the Hollow Knight wondered if he could even see a hand before himself. If he could see the royal retainers at the corners, watching him with concern, hoping to hear of his troubles and aid him in carrying them, but the Wyrm never did so. They wondered if he could even see them, and how  _ hollow _ they were, and worthy, and ready to see his plan come through with no cost too great. They would not disappoint. If only he would look to the side, and see that when his throne room grew empty, there was none left but the watchful Pure Vessel next to him, guarding his sorrows from interruption.

But the Pale King never looked to the side. And in the in-between of these two events, from deciding ultimately that they would be as hollow as intended, and the last time they stood in a vacant Pale Court, time had passed in a strangely even blurr. They trained with the Knights, comforted by Hegemol’s words enough that they spared the little vessel enough of a break to give them a chance. A chance was all it took for them to show they were quick learners and vicious with a nail. The battles grew in intensity, and the list of tricks they learned did so as well. Their shell grew, the nail they carried grew. The Pale King noticed such skill eventually, and retreated into his workshop, before emerging with summons to the Master in the Soul Sanctum.

Apparently the focus that permitted them to wield a nail was also strong enough to learn spells without wilting or malforming. With time, their shell molted and gave place to a larger one, and so did the power behind each skill learn and further developed. Greater perhaps than the repertoire of any Soul Master, present or past, but such credit was given to their nature, confided to the Soul Master at the time. Unlike the Knights, who saw in their ability enough merit to grow at the very least respectful toward the vessel, there was no liking for them in the Soul Sanctum. They worked their abilities until they were drained and immobile, and at the end of the day, they watched the scholars gather at the Pleasure House and sink on the hot spring there, nearly melting into the warm waters. Servants of the King as loyal as they were had an unspoken but very clear priority in that room, enough that their arrival emptied the spring, and the scholars assembled there still left room for a couple more bugs, but none dared to take the empty space.

They never tried to enter it. But once, they stepped close enough to catch the attention of one of the scholars.  _ “Not you, mold. By the Pale Beings, it really does mimic everything it sees, doesn’t it? Funny, it doesn’t feel pain, how could it feel hot water? Either way, do you know when will Marissa perform-” _

The scholar’s attention quickly bled from the Hollow Knight, but his hadn’t been the only pair of eyes that befell them when those words had been uttered. It remained painfully still, not a step forward, nor back. If they didn’t think, they didn’t take offense, nor were meant to take anything out of these words and glances. Appearances meant everything and so they remained, painfully still while feeling the warmth of the hot Ssing only a few steps ahead, bringing condensation to the surface of their pale shell and making it drip on their cloak, that they just brought discreetly closer around themselves. In the hopes, perhaps, that it would hide their black carapace and secondly, hide all of them from the nobility’s ephemeral attention. 

The Hallownest they would be sacrificed to save was beautiful, but flawed and cruel at times. Nonetheless, it was not for them that it held on their hollowness like the mask that held everything together. It was not for them that their focus and chains held. It had never been for them. Only one being in this world had wanted them, raised them from sacrifice and gave them selflessly to those he loved. It was enough for the one named the Hollow Knight. It was enough for them to never question again, for a very long time. 

_ “Sibling.” _ The Ghost of Hallownest called in their shared mind, the intonation kind yet with a pointedness sturdy enough to rob the Hollow Knight from their thoughts when they did so, making their head make a slight quick jolt from the position it hanged in.  _ "I can only hear the thoughts you choose to voice." _

They weren’t in that Hallownest anymore. That Hallownest of the past had perished long ago, and like the aspids in these abandoned and forgotten crossroads, from the corpse emerged a weaker, smaller, insignificant other version of it, that busied itself quickly from eating its antecessor’s remains. They still thought of the Hallownest of old often, as if it still awaited past these roads, with all the faces they knew well, and all the memories, good and bad, only a step away from being lived through once more. There wasn’t such a thing awaiting, however, and they weren’t in the comfortable Pleasure House but rather at a hot spring in the crossing of nowhere with no place, carved from stone for the passing travellers to enjoy and that somehow had endured through the fall of the Kingdom. They did dare to hope that something else too had, despite Hornet having told them otherwise.

_ “...Not every thought I have is worth sharing.” _ If experience was to tell, then actually, no thought was. That they even thought and felt was a standalone disgrace, and what they currently felt were like a lumafly; made to cling to the surface of a lamp post filled with their charged kin, and for the longest while, it had danced beautifully around it, learnt the pacing, circled with unmatched grace, just as expected. Only to hit the surface of the glass enough times and fall unceremoniously one day, like dust and disappointment. Pitiful, broken, and useless. Now that they began thinking without the chains of hollowness, it brought shards of self-reflection to their mind that were short of despairing. Their sibling deserved better than hearing any of it.

_ “Let me be the judge of that.”  _ The Ghost of Hallownest stated with a haunting simplicity. Their sibling was truly a wonder and a mystery. For beings meant to be hollow, it frightened them how different they could be despite being exactly of the same organic material. Upbringing alone could not create such a vast gap, and perhaps the Pale King had been correct by choosing the one that emerged as their Vessel instead of whatever other his eyes befell. Perhaps there was truly something in them that differed them from one another besides the arrangement of their horns. How to discern that, however...

Wherein the Hollow Knight seemed satisfied with idleness and willing to take other people’s words for most subjects, their sibling was nothing like that. To be in the same room for long seemed to bother them, as if the awareness of a world outside for them to explore was too great of a temptation, enough that being in a single space for too long felt like an offense on what they could be doing instead. In fact, this might be the longest they had ever seen their sibling still in the same spot - only their shell above the water, their mothwing cloak soaking up all the liquid as if walking with it wet wasn’t only a disadvantage in combat but also thoroughly unpleasant, even for a vessel’s short range of physical feeling.

Away and perfectly dry was the Grimmchild, curled up on the warm fossilised path. Their sibling had explained that their little red ward didn’t like water much, but would tolerate the City of Tears under the promise of a battle at the end of it. Came as no surprise at all to the Hollow Knight that their sibling’s definition of good company, particularly the kind that the Grimmchild provided, actually meant that they had bonded over the child’s tendency to immolate anything even remotely hostile on sight, may it be living still or not. 

Once, the Hollow Knight thought there wasn’t a being in Hallownest as martial-centered as Hornet. In comparison to the Ghost of Hallownest however, she was but a convoy of peace and diplomacy.  _ "...I have been to a hot spring before. It is not something to bother ourselves with. There is no tendon or sinew in a Vessel to relax." _

Their sibling remained immobile in the warm water, nothing moving in the room besides the pouring water from the carved fountains and the rising steam that fumed slowly upwards, taking a longer time than it did in their memory to precipitate against their shell. Their sibling heard them this time, without doubt, and it made the Hollow Knight wary. They had no voice to speak, but they had learnt how to choose their words even if they supposedly would never come to use them. They knew they could be perceived as either pretentious or unkind with this statement, even as they intended to be neither thing. Woe to them should they ever cause offense to the sibling they owed the most.

But no offense seemed to be taken by the smaller vessel as they answered in the same even tune they ever wore. Sharply witted but not ill meaning, the Ghost of Hallownest would never know how much alike a Knight they were. Far more than the Hollow Knight could ever be.  _ "You sound like you have never actually entered it, however. Feel it for yourself." _

They raised their nail a little, before tilting their shell to seek a fissure on the darkened ground below. These crossroads were older than Hallownest, older than the Wyrm’s arrival and older than the moths at the Resting Grounds. Older than the mantises, but perhaps not older than the odd life forms of the Fungal Wastes and the weavers in Deepnest. It stood as a memory of a past the Pale King did not hide from sight, but didn’t like having it brought up in his presence. These roads were made of braided stone, carved in a manner that seemed to require impossibly dexterous skill, covering every inch from its beginning to its end. It was easy to not notice the masterwork of it, however - over the stone, an uneven coating had been formed with the ages. The shells of countless bugs littered these caves, decaying and melting and solidifying once again. The result was raw and uneven looking crossroads, paved by fossilised shells in a macabre and ancient system of caves and pathways.

Their temple was such a thing. A stone egg coated in Void, placed into the fossilised shell of a greater bug that preceded Hallownest and the memories of most of its inhabitants. Scholars studied that long-lost history with pride, but knew better than to give praise to the ancients in front of anyone more invested in the politics at the time than with the marvels of history. It was impressive how much the Hollow Knight had learnt simply from being assumed to be too mindless to pay attention and absorb anything that wasn’t an order. Useless knowledge, perhaps, but one that decorated the halls of their memories, gave life and landscape to the temple they built in their dreams and that the Radiance enjoyed raging through every minute of their conjoint confinement, using memories and emotions in that temple as she saw fit.

Similarly, this fossilised ground too had cracks one could take advantage of. They raised their nail and sought for a spot, before letting it sink through one that seemed large and deep enough. The once pure and great nail had been a work of art, beautifully made and capable of cutting through even the finest silks without the fabric bending. Now, they needn’t concern themselves with the sharpness of the tip. Currently the blunt handle was possibly sharper than the point. Letting their hand go of it, they watched for a moment to see if it would fall over. Concluding it wouldn’t, they brought their fingers to below their head, where their cloak caught and hid with a tall collar the conjunction of carapace and shell. Undoing the buttons underneath the fabric, their cloak came off with little effort. Their sibling’s cloak was newer and more resistant, perhaps they could afford getting it wet. The Hollow Knight could not.

Placing it carefully on the handle of their great nail, they allowed themselves to step into the hot spring slowly. Without their cloak there was no concealing the eaten side of their carapace, nor the malformation that it resulted on their back and neck, nor the way it weakened the structure and made them haunch forward, and as it solidified, it didn’t stretch again. It also revealed the terrible disproportion of Vessels, who even in their prime form were just that. Build like a twig and stem, to carry a very large shell that they wouldn’t be able to move at all if their lithe void carapaces weren't ridiculously strong in their own right, and if their shell wasn’t empty of anything of organic weight in the first place.

They sunk into the hot water, trying to find a position where most of their body was inside of the hot spring rather than out. They didn't achieve much, but perhaps enough. When finally settled, they let themselves soak and properly feel it. 

They shouldn't have doubted their sibling, that was the first thing they registered. For they  _ could _ feel it, through their carapace and perhaps even through their most sensitive shell. It was like osmosis, the liquid within them reacted somehow to the liquid outside, reaching some sort of balance they could not exactly name. They felt the warmth, in a manner that the weather could hardly make them feel, regardless of the coldness or heat winds pummeled against their surface. They felt the warmth within their body, softening the innate tension of  _ being _ and leaving nothing but the sharpness of their mind. This must be what led the scholars of the Soul Sanctum so often to the Pleasure House - if the casting of spells wore them down like it wore on the Vessel, then this must feel like the rekindling of all that mental exhaustion that made their minds so numb and unwilling to deliver anything. The Hollow Knight was granted no rest when their casting reached their limit, instead the swinging of their nail and practice of its forms was what restored that focus. They hadn't ever bothered to imagine that there was another way to regain it besides that.

They were wrong. Them, and the scholars, and everyone else. To consider that was such a painful train of thought, but also an unavoidable realisation.  _ "...It feels pleasant." _

Their sibling was nothing but respectful as they must have heard the Hollow Knight's rather quiet but lingering surprise. They imagined that the Ghost of Hallownest knew they didn't need to utter a word for the chosen vessel to realise their folly. To keep trusting every word of their past was a fool's errand, but one they were stubbornly set to, nonetheless. Their mind could hold with a degree of pain the awareness that they were wrong, that the Pale King might be wrong, but their heart or whatever blackened version of it that they possessed, it still longed to keep on their path. Do not stray, do not question, to do disappoint, do not  _ abandon _ . In their grief, to let go of anything taught felt like a betrayal of sorts, an abandonment of the one most loved.

Mattered not that they knew somewhere in that mind of theirs that they had been abandoned to fester and rot. It was not an invitation for the Hollow Knight to abandon right back. Their sibling answered in a pinch; to hear their thoughts was a blessing, and an exercise of grounding.  _ "There's no better place to focus on healing. _ "

_ "May I?"  _ Their sibling moved from their spot on the hot spring to the other side, past the larger vessel's long legs to settle again next to their missing half. Their hands were a diminutive thing, with little to no distinction of fingers, but there were some to execute that grip that permitted them to hold a nail in the first place. It was as if they were soft still, carapace malleable and uncertain. The Hollow Knight knew how that had been like, once, where the only hard thing on them was the shell that felt too foreign and weighted too weirdly. They did not miss that time, but they missed the environment, the company. At their sibling's request, they only but gave the slightest of nods, and those hands carefully touched where their carapace had shut the missing part.  _ "I have fought your best dream, the Pure Vessel you were. You could channel soul, then. Is it not enough to rebuild this?" _

A fair question, they supposed, and also one that they already had done to themselves. It used to be enough. It had been one of the first things they had ever learned, how to focus and with it, permit the Void in them to rebuild what had never been organic in the first place. As they grew, so did their abilities and talents, and they had perfected that control to the point they could alter that to a degree, whiplash from underneath their cloak with tendrils and mismatched forms that moved as if weightless, but cut as sharp as claws. But now, that was gone entirely. Their remaining hand raised from the water to tap at their own shell; their only truly organic part was the most sensitive. Felt every touch, every drop of moisture from the spring. To hit it seemed to rattle the void within, the only true kind of damage they felt to themselves. With it damaged as it was, to tap it now felt like a minor blow.

_ "With the shell broken, there is no focus for me to wield."  _ It had been the first thing they tried when they stood as upright as they could within the Black Egg of their Temple, and felt in its entirety what time and her brilliance had done to them. Felt the tatters of their once spotless cloak, felt the chafing of their beloved armour that sported handles in their platting, made to bind them, donned one last time and nailed to their carapace. Felt the emptiness in their thoughts, haunted now only by themselves and their own misery. And felt themselves powerless to erase any of the damage that the world had inflicted upon them.

Perhaps that was a part of them that she consumed. Her infection took their mind and stole their focus, and like their missing limb, erasing the enraged Goddess from their mind did not return their integrity to them. Did not return the conviction, nor the ease of mind, nor the fierce dedication they once wielded. Now, they were simply  _ tired _ . Somethings could not be remedied, they thought. Death but one of them, this tiredness was another, and the aching in whatever resemblance of a heart that they had, they didn't think that could be remedied either. Their sibling tilted their shell a little, emptied eyes hollowed of anything, their shell coated within with a black lining that swallowed all light and reflected nothing of its inner walls. Even less the emotions they felt.

_ "I have cracked my shell before. It's not terminal."  _ They said, taking their small hand from their side to gesture vaguely, breaking the small clouds that raised slowly from the spring. Two forms were shaped by those seemingly fingerless hands, one lithe at a side, another not unlike an empty bowl. The Hollow Knight knew what they were gesturing to, before they added the explaining thought.  _ "You just have to unite the shade back to the shell and everything sears back together." _

The procedure was a known one. It was inevitable that through the trials and training that they endured, that eventually one of them became simply too much. Their progenitor was a highly intelligent bug, with a penchant for order and pragmatism. The Pale King wanted them to grow, in size and ability, and such development was bound to a learning process. An intricate parallel between the programming of a kingsmold and the upbringing of a child, he had to find a way to make them faster, sharper, more coordinated so to be every inch the being that would stand up against embodied infection. He named them a Knight, and decided that it was a Knight's training they would have. The strangeness of the Knights towards them worked as an advantage for such goals - they fought with little camaraderie and did not hold back when they drew their weapons. It was under Hegemol's hammer that they discovered the Pure Vessel could break, at the notice of a sickening crack that resonated throughout the courtyard. 

Without their shell, they were but a speck of Void difficult to hold together, their form a mismatched shade, recognisable only due to the pair of horns so unique and imprinted in the memories of the inhabitants of the White Palace. What gave them shape and life, a soul to channel through and the order of all things was that Pale shell, now shattered on the dented white stone. They saw, for the first time, themselves from the outside. Their broken shell, so pale and petite in comparison to the behemoth of a Knight that they had been fighting. Their disembodiment was also a distance to that world, that reality, and the then-horrified Knight. They felt nothing when they looked at Hegemol, barely recognition. Why they were fighting then seemed to escape their mind, but if approached, they would attack. But their attention returned to that broken shell, the face that gave them a notion of self, the empty expression that began being added to paintings and brought as gifts by royal retainers. Their skill was in that fragile, earthy thing, and there was also their purpose. They were the Pure Vessel, the shell and the black coating within. Not just black coat, nor just a dead shell. Both. 

By the time Hegemol had the Pale King brought over, the shade had found its way back. Found in itself enough mind and memory to crawl back into the inanimate piece and snap it back in place, as if it had never separated itself. And yet, they were so tired when they were done, all they could think of was the last time they had sat down and let their carapace rest, permitting it to take it's time to mend all the dents in its blackened surface. So, so long. It's where the Pale King found them, leagues away from the courtyard, curled in a bassinet they weren't tucked in so long ago.  _ “I know what you mean. This is not the case, for there is no shade of mine elsewhere. It is not impossible that my Old Light corroded through that too, body and shade and soul.” _

If they knew a better explanation to give their sibling, they would hand it to the smaller vessel without any second thoughts, but alas, they didn’t have any other theory on why they were not capable of healing their wounds off anymore. There was no reason for them to harbour secrets from their sibling, none that they could imagine. There was no shade of theirs roaming Hallownest, be it in the bowels of the Abyss or within the Temple of the Black Egg or anywhere else. They weren’t a half-animated body, nor anything of the sort, they were simply damaged. Irreparably perhaps, but they weren’t particularly eager to hammer their shell on the nearest hard surface to break free their shade and hope there was enough of it to retake their shell and restore their form to what it was before.

Their life was an impossibility - none in either Hornet’s or Ghost’s place could have imagined that there was a way for them to be able to walk on their own out of their binds, thus they hadn’t even entertained that thought. They couldn’t be blamed for not considering it, not even the Hollow Knight themselves could imagine such, regardless of how much hope they might have in them after all. To hope for the impossible wasn’t hope, but rather, delusion, and they didn’t think they were that far into the habit of hoping.

_ “I don’t think so.” _ Their sibling was slowly but surely becoming only  _ Ghost _ in the Hollow Knight’s mind, as a means to distance them even further from the endless hordes of siblings and shells that resided in the bottom of the Abyss. The Ghost of Hallownest, as their sister referred to them. Powerful names were those conquered and given with kind thought. Not only fitting, Ghost of Hallownest was a charmingly powerful title.  _ “I think it is worth trying a place I found at our Birthplace. The idea is that if you can’t heal from the void inside, then from the outside should do it.” _

The suggestion to return to that place rang alarms and desperation within the Hollow Knight's mind. A terror far greater than the one that walking only levels away from the Temple of the Black Egg brought, greater than thinking of all the pain they endured, all the days they lived through in that hazy miasma of infection and longing and despair. The thought of their imprisonment didn't bring up the reaction that this suggestion did, making the larger Vessel want to raise from where they were seated and dart away, as fast and their mangled body could, if only so to distance themselves physically from the notion and perhaps with it manage to escape such a thought as well. They didn't move, however. They were bolted still, as if bound by chain and seal.  _ "I would rather not." _

The effort applied in such a simple denial, a plain and quiet ' _ no _ ', felt immeasurable. They had never done such a thing for themselves, something as simple as saying a word, deciding something for themselves. They thought they would find some exhilaration on finally doing so, but all they felt was exhaustion afterwards, as if they were pushing against their nature. The line between learnt behaviour and personality was a blurry thing, but in either way, to do anything as simple as deny something, felt strongly like they were going against either thing. Their fingers dared to move, to once more trace their eaten half and the unevenly solidified carapace, the touch both mindless and thoughtful; both managing to be done for no specific reason and thought, but also being enough to revisit a litany of memories and wishes and words unsaid, between a Goddess and her unwilling vessel.

The Hollow Knight had been raised basking by a powerful, wise, pale light. In the dark, another was placed within them, cruel and relentless and  _ angry _ . But that had always been their company, the light of Higher Beings. Not the Void, never the Void. The Void that both lights so deeply opposed, and that the Hollow Knight so desperately wished they either were Void its entirety, so they would feel and think nothing, or that they lacked the Void entirely, so maybe, and only maybe, they wouldn't be the Hollow Knight after all.

They could have been just  _ them _ . The being that the Pale King raised, but without the weight of knowing they were tainted black within. The child the White Lady wished for, without the dreadful fate ahead of them, so she wouldn't hurt when holding them close, and wouldn't feel the need to distance herself as they grew and that future grew nearer. But they were neither. Not fully Hollow, nor Pale. They disappointed in both ways, and served for nothing besides to buy Hallownest time, prolonging its death into a miserable squirming and convulsing of its last moments. Alas, they failed. And they found no love in themselves for that part of them that made it all be as it was, that part of them that was in them in the first place and dared to not be enough. This emotion was the frustration of a Wyrm that wasn't here to witness this failure, but surely he would feel similarly.

_ "A hard enough smack and you will fall apart. We must try it."  _ Their sibling insisted, a thought lighting up the messy, dysfunctional disorder of their head and the rampaging thoughts the Hollow Knight concocted. In that prison of theirs, there had been something that ground their thoughts as well, a beacon of poisonous light that fed off from the dreams they had, the thoughts that escaped their control and the emotions that they felt. She had no mercy to spare a child of the Wyrm, but she responded to their thoughts with as much rage and disdain as with some version of mockery of pity. Terrible, but grounding. All this vessel knew were lights, their love, their rage, their will and hopes. They were grown under such an environment, and it was a miserable thing to imagine themselves in this world of darkness.

That was the world that their sibling had threaded through and surely seen the damage those lights did. It had not been light that grew their sibling, but rather the Void that they so readily welcomed. It was in it that they found kinship and strength, it was through the road they walked, the skills they learned and the people that they aided that they met rage, hope and liking. None of them lights. It was in the Void that their sibling found disclosure, and in the same way that the Hollow Knight seemed to ignore their Void part, the Ghost of Hallownest seemed to think not too highly of the very shell they possessed. Might as well be without it, and unite the Void within themselves and achieve greater things, without the face of one that from their angle, surely must have done more harm than good for Hallownest.

They could respect such an emotion, if their sibling possessed it. Bitterness and rage towards their father, unwillingness to think too much of what it truly might mean to inhabit this shell, capable of outliving time and opposed to the darkness it sealed within. They could understand it, but they could never harbour such a thought, not when they had seen the best of the Pale light too. It was the Void that they had trouble thinking through. It was as if they were heirs of a clan feud, everything the Ghost of Hallownest grew in, thought and welcomed, rivalled what the Hollow Knight valued. But there was no rivalry or animosity between them. The feud was inherited, but not the hate.

_ “You deny it. Us. Me.” _ The Hollow Knight’s silence led their sibling to a conclusion. A harsh one too, one that the larger vessel wouldn’t have ever intended to be taken, even less could have voiced such a thing. They shook their head slowly, letting it be still once turned entirely towards them. They knew not what sorts of thoughts and emotions they had, their own heart was a mystery and the Ghost’s own was composed entirely of guesswork. They had lived entirely different lives, truth might be that they knew emotions far different from the ones the Hollow Knight knew. But they imagined that to conclude such a thing brought a degree of hurt. In their place, it would have hurt, for the parallel  _ did _ hurt. The thought that their sibling thought little or less of the Pale King than the Wyrm actually deserved in the Hollow Knight’s mind, it did hurt. It was not a comfortable thought. To deny that shell, that light, and everything he did and had been, was too to deny them. 

And they were a small family, as odd and unfamiliar and strange as they were. There was nothing else in this Hallownest for either of them if not aged duties and half-pale shells to bind them together. And they were not willing to give up that small family just yet.  _ “Nay. Not in the manner you speak.” _

That was a  _ no _ that, for a change, didn’t feel entirely against their nature. Felt exactly like them and what they wanted to try, for once, to remedy the dread that seemed to surround them and their relations. There was no feeling of freedom past their failure of containing the infection, but they did shed away like an old shell the hope that they could ever be hollow. There was nothing in that hope for them anymore. They could finally act, if they so wished, to break the comfort of idleness and silence with something that might seem more worthwhile than following their taught behaviour. They could dry the tears they saw, no more a powerless witness of them. That was a freeing thought. Failure still weighed them down, but they shed away one expectation. Post-mortem was supposed to be a lighter state, after all.

_ "Then how is it that you deny the Void? It is part of you, of us all. You can’t pretend otherwise.”  _ Their sibling stated, but the question was rhetorical in the intonation they chose to voice it in their mind. Their sibling questioned, but seemed to understand that no answer could be easily given, even less understood. They truly were byproducts of different worlds, two different Hallownests, and two possible Hollow Knights. The Ghost of Hallownest was what they could have been, if they were the one that emerged so long after the Pure Vessel ascended from the Abyss. They could have been like this, too - small, curious, eager to see every corner of this kingdom and hoard their secrets like medals of battle, except that perhaps they wouldn’t be so willing to use their nail. In a Hallownest without light to guide them all, and only the Void as present progenitor, they too would have disdained the shell that seemed to limit their shade’s potential.

But they were not their sibling, they did not live the life of the Ghost of Hallownest. They were the Hollow Knight, the Pale King’s Pure Vessel, and the life they had lived was a twisted mirror reflection of the other vessel’s own. It was debatable whether it was a better life or a worse one. Those things were not really made to be compared, they thought.  _ “I understand your indignation. You too reject something I highly esteem.” _

_ “No, I don’t.”  _ It was the time for their sibling to turn their shell towards theirs in a movement far too measured for it to belong to common bug, and to answer them as quickly as they could. The Hollow Knight wondered, distantly, if they had been like this too. So comically small and strangely  _ unnatural _ , with empty eye sockets that seemed too large for their head, that in turn was actually too large for their lithe body concealed by cloak. It stood as no surprise that the bugs of the decaying Hallownest looked at them and did not see the  _ God-killer, Light-consuming horror _ that the small vessel actually was. They chose this, they thought. The Ghost of Hallownest had the skill of the mightiest of Dreamers, they could have remained in that Godhome they had transversed, remained at its top unquestioned, unrivalled. The God of Gods, they had called them, the  _ Lord of Shades _ . 

Instead, they returned. As mute as ever, with stories that no one would hear, none but their siblings. Hallownest had become a cemetery at the open with a few wanderers only biding their time before they joined the dead, and nonetheless, they had returned for these people. Returned for this world that certainly mustn’t credit them as they deserved it. They returned to this diminutive form and were still eager to look after this land that would never know what they did for them. Not unlike their sister’s own fate. There were no statues raised for the Ghost and Daughter of Hallownest, whose sacrifices, in their opinion, were far more meaningful than theirs. The Hollow Knight had done it for a person. They did it for Hallownest. They were deserving of the title of Knight far more than the only actual Knight of the three.

They wondered - perhaps they shouldn’t - how things would have been if they were different. If only the Pale King had more time with Hornet, and wasn’t so absorbed in growing the Pure Vessel as fast as he could despite it not being a fast process, despite how hard they both had worked on that. How the King would have seen the little vessel before them, entirely different from the one he Knighted? If it was anything like how the Hollow Knight saw it, it would have been with an immeasurable amount of pride. Pride they had never witnessed being turned to them.  _ “You do. You are much greater than this shell, molting is overdue.” _

It was not a matter of size anymore, no. Their shell was something entirely composed of  _ Pale Being. _ Organic yet everlasting, it challenged time and betrayed the notion of power being directly connected to size and age. It grew as the being chose to grow, like a Wyrm that finally decided to settle where there were bugs for him to rule and lead. It was part of their nature to do so, and the same to a vessel, to a smaller degree. The Wyrm predicted three molts of the Hollow Knight before they were ready for the Radiance, and it had been so. Three times their father had seen that it was done as safely as it could. Three times in which they had emerged taller, stronger,  _ brighter _ , and basked in their father’s light as if it was the first time they had seen him, and basked in a rare praise that they held on tightly forevermore. Pride. It had always been a matter of pride for him. Hallownest was his pride and glory. No cost too great to spare it from her wrath. 

The Hollow Knight just wanted a little bit of that pride to be directed towards them, without the reminder that what lay beneath the shell was a tame, harnessed enemy. In those moments, they supposed they got the closest to such a thing. In a way, they were thankful that these three molts weren’t repeating themselves. The process wasn’t an entirely comfortable one, and without their progenitor… There was no point, truly. There was no metamorphosis on the brink of death. 

_ “It is because I don’t know how to do that.”  _ Their sibling stated, sitting back into the hot spring so only their shell stood out of the water, tilted up to look at them. Of course they didn’t know how to do it - it worked in odd ways, and they lacked the cues bugs often had to bring that change to come. One had to be particularly seeking that change to discover it on their own terms, and they supposed the Ghost of Hallownest had other things to concern themselves with. Their size betrayed their deadliness and capacity, and to do anything about it would only be a matter of appearances rather than anything else. Their sibling was nothing but extremely practical and efficient, and if their size served them, then by all means they should keep it.

After all, they were part Wyrm and part Root. Even when in small forms, those were not beings known for keeping themselves on the shorter range of sizes. A balance between the White Lady and the Pale King had been achieved with the Hollow Knight. They had seen a painting of it, once; she presided over them both in a beautiful arrangement of roots, braiding towards all directions, tall and ever elegant. Her face was delicately framed at the sides by the tips of the Hollow Knight’s horns, their pauldrons at the time wider than her sides. Their great nail stood before them, pointed straight towards the ground it embedded its tip. Their hands folded at the handle, only a little above the crowned head of the Pale King. Together and aligned, they filled a long canvas, perfect proportions, in spotless arrangement.

They discovered why it was that they liked that painting so much only ages after, bound at the Temple of the Black Egg. They had a hope, small and hidden within themselves, that they were the thing the monarchs of Hallownest wanted and sought. They hoped that they could fill that emptiness, bridge that distance between them, be the balance that could mend it all, somehow. The expected and dearly wanted child. Three was a powerful number. It was a foolish hope, a delusion. But it was there, anyway.  _ “It will not make you stronger, nor anymore capable, but I shall teach you if that is your wish.” _

For the Hollow Knight, it was important to remind them that there were no greater benefits to do it. Perhaps they would be a little taller, enough that they would be seen as less of a child by most bugs. The range and strength of their nail would increase, of course, perhaps at the cost of a little speed. Nothing that a warrior like them couldn’t adjust to, adapt in whatever manner they saw fit. Without the Radiance, what other being truly stood a chance against them? There was nothing else for them to fight in Hallownest, they thought; they were a Knight unrivalled in their craft. If they choose to look a little more like that, it was their decision, by no means obligation. They weren’t going to push the expectation of appearances onto their sibling. It was enough of a burden for them to carry, and they would do so alone. Their sibling lived well free of such a thing, they wouldn’t add to them that weight. 

They expected their sibling to deny wanting to learn such a thing. They seemed so comfortable with their size after all. But when they focused their only seeing eye on them once again, their shell looked down at their small hands with no discerning fingers. They could only but wonder what was it that ran in their head at that moment, their thoughts too low and tangled for the Hollow Knight to hear, but certainly there was plenty on going there. It was not a light decision, no. Faces were important things, they were their identities, every small dent a sign of what lives they lived, from the angle of their eyes to the hue of the shell. They supposed that if not immediate denial, they would at least ask some time to consider it.

The Ghost of Hallownest answered promptly and suddenly, eye sockets still trained on their small hands.  _ “Teach me.” _

The Hollow Knight truly knew nothing of their sibling, besides of course the fact that they were ridiculously opposing to them, like the Void was to any light. They were this inherited feud without hate indeed - all those differences, everything that made their sibling so incredibly opposite to themselves, were by far not something they despised but rather grew to adore more at each moment.  _ “Sustenance and movement.” _

The answer was plain and did not cover even half of the entire process. But they weren’t going to explain it fully in a single sentence - the Hollow Knight wasn’t one for speeches nor for fast paced sentences, they were still warming up to the thought of communicating with their sibling, more to the Ghost’s request than from their own need to do so. They would take their time explaining how molting worked, for it was something that would require time in any way. Weeks, if not an entire month. Difficult to tell since time didn’t dare to pass in Dirtmouth, with no leaves to signal the seasons and little to no perceptible change in those winds, as far as they knew. The everlasting night might be a blessing to the decaying Kingdom, prolonging its post-mortem and perhaps the Hollow Knight’s own in turn, but they couldn’t find it in themselves to like it. For one that knew light closely, a world without it would always seem as if it lacked something.

_ “I have seen Grimmchild eating. I don’t feel that need. We don’t even have mouths, Hollow.” _ Hollow. So nonchalantly, their sibling handed them the shortened version of their title with the lightness one might utter a well-known name. Hollow Knight was not a name, could never be, but was rather a title. Something they were meant to be, but failed monumentally at doing. Nonetheless, their sibling spoke it as if it was a name, without the length and without the distance titles were handled. It might not be a title they enjoyed, nor one they could hear without feeling a degree of anguish, but a name was always something given, not chosen. And they took it from their sibling as if it were a barbed gift, prickly but dear.

Took them a moment to recover from hearing such a thing, but progressively they let themselves recall their sibling’s words. A comment on sustenance. It definitely was not something they imagined their sibling were familiar with, not with how it was not something that could be discovered through trial and error. Nothing besides their shell was organic, as such, everything had to be focused, thought and reproduced. To make fingers to draw a nail, to make feet to walk the land, to make tendrils to defend themselves. All that their carapace did was to mimic the being they were not, but could have been, if the egg they emerged from hadn’t sank on the Abyss.

They chose to show, rather than to explain. They tilted their own shell upwards, until their eyes could only see the pointed ceiling of this room, the direction in which all the steam from the hot spring escaped towards, to gather between the sharp, juted stones above. They gathered moisture and dripped water right back into the spring, not often but enough that they could hear it on the water or the floor that surrounded the spring. Their shell had three holes; two eye sockets, as empty as they could be, and one below it all. It was a rather large hole, that perhaps if they were living bugs, would have connected to a maw below and a thicker neck that would connect to a body more proportional to the size of their shell.

It wasn’t their case. The carapace only bothered to close the entire hole, before it funneled to a long and lithe neck, arched at its highest so to grant them the angle to face the path forward, and minimally plated to give strength to the flexible neck. A strange construction, that dared to challenge logic, but a fine work all the same. A vessel’s prime form was a fully matured shell with a black carapace that finally could mimic a proper bug’s plating and joints, no longer soft or inconsistent, as if made by liquid or smoke. Their last molt had taken long… Too long, if memory still served them well. 

For a display, they opened their maw, or at least where there should be one. It was where the shell met the caparace of their neck, the movement looking as if their shell went too far back enough to separate and tear at the junction, yet it was not the case. Thin tendrils crossed the sides from shell to caparace, as if to keep the shell from tilting back too far. Small ridges littered the edge of the inner carapace and the inner shell, where they met. The simulation of pointed teeth, but far too small for it to have any proper use. What truly had use was the long tongue that unfurled from within, thin and flexible, not unlike a butterfly’s own. To discover that they could do such a thing had taken forever. They didn’t feel hunger nor had a sense of taste, and their mouths produced no sound. Where every movement was something coerced by focus, naturally this could have gone forever without being discovered.

It was also something to keep from sight of any royal retainer. They had eaten away from anyone’s sight, often at the Pale King’s workshop as the Wyrm took his notes, made his calculations, tried to measure how much food and at what time period it would take before their shell began giving off the first signs of molting. His progenitor had always been too focused on measuring that progress with quantities and days, giving little room for discovering how exactly it worked. Soft and liquid sustenance worked best, that was the only observable conclusion. That, and that the Hollow Knight should never open their mouth anywhere near any bug of the White Palace. They never did so, but the high collared cloak came soon after the discovery. They thought it served as a good enough reminder, given it did stand on the way.

As they closed their jaws and tilted their shell down once more, they met the hollowed eyes of their sibling. They hadn’t moved from the spot they were, having watched the whole thing in an immovable silence that one could cut through with a nail, should they attempt. The Ghost of Hallownest voiced themselves, finally.  _ “That looks as horrific as when the Grimmchild does it.” _

Maybe there was a degree of reason to their progenitor after all when he demanded that this was kept to no other creature but themselves and the King. It may look unnatural when compared to the other bugs of Hallownest, perhaps a little less so among butterflies or the spiders, whose jaws were far more complex and awful looking than any other creature. Their sibling’s comment was, for once, an expected outcome. They moved their single arm behind themselves, supporting itself on the edge of the hot spring before slowly hauling themselves over to stand. A difficult ordeal to an inflexible spine and legs that after hanging for an age, no longer stood straight. Slumped, they stepped over the hot spring’s edge, and took their cloak from their great nail’s handle. 

_ “Higher being, these words are for you alone. Within our lands do not hide your true form. Let all bask in your majesty, for only this kingdom could produce ones such as you.” _ They recited from memory, having been there when the Pale King wrote his tablets, sealed light within carved stone, branded his words into stationary rock so it may last as long as Hallwonest itself the words of its King and Creator. These words were placed in a particular piece, at the gates of Hallownest itself, at the King’s Pass. Welcoming all travellers that chose to join that intricate Kingdom, not ensnared by Old Light nor the mindlessness of the barren lands beyond, and choose to elevate themselves by free thought and adoration.

Beyond instinct there was intelligence, order and enlightenment. And Hallownest always welcomed any bug that shed away their primitive selves to engage in something as complex and orderly as a hive, but blessed by free thought. To be as they were, as hideous and odd as they may be, if only they welcomed that order and thought, was enough of an independence to be celebrated. The Pale King went as far as to call them Higher Beings, even if they lacked that crucial soulful part, lacked the glow, the essence and the timelessness. Even if most would age and decay and were nothing that composed a Higher Being. But they were closer indeed to Higher Beings than most when they permitted themselves to break from mindless instinct. Higher than the day before, surely, reaching ever higher. Hallownest stood for its name, a holy land, and its kin was such an enlightened folk. 

_ “Live your shell, do not simply inhabit it.”  _ They elaborated, as they brought their cloak over their shoulders and worked slowly the buttons once more around their neck, a slow process with a single hand, but they were not in a hurry. Their sibling inhabited their shell - cared little for it, and thought little of what it meant to be what they were. Born of God and Void, they too chose only one half to think of. But the Ghost of Hallownest was interested to learn a little more about their godly half, and the Hollow Knight was willing to teach what they could. To live that shell, keep it and grow it. Cherish, in a manner, the few ways it differed from the shells and masks of all other beings. Their existence was too an impossible thing, but here they were, beyond that impossibility, living in their own manner or enduring their post-mortem.

They could aid their sibling on that, so their Pale half wouldn’t betray them like their Void half betrayed the Pure Vessel. If that was all that they could do for their sibling, the  _ God-killer  _ having achieved all else, then it was what they would do for them. Anything for them. And perhaps they could be as good or better at such than their progenitor was. Perhaps.  _ “I will accompany you in this process.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I hope you enjoyed this. Leave a thought if you want, I care for your opinions a lot. Next chapter comes in less than a week, I just gotta edit and make some additions.
> 
> If you want to contact me personally to share your input, feel free to get in touch through my Discord (Herja#8664). 
> 
> Stay tuned!


	3. Missing Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ THIS WARNING:
> 
> So, this was supposed to be a single chapter along with part 2 but it clearly got too long. The quality feels like its dropping but I will try to resurrect it on the next ones. Tags have been updated and it's important to check them every now and then if you can, as well as the notes at the end. At least for this chapter. Thank you, and sorry for demanding such.

They had fought and defeated all the Five Great Knights of Hallownest several times, in duos, all together, or each standing on their own. They stood victorious in any scenery, in small arenas and in uneven grounds. They had achieved great things in their prime, growing into the form of the Knight their progenitor had seen in his foresight, a Pure Vessel standing in the sands of time and fumes of her illness, the future of Hallownest secured in their nothingness. None sang praise to their victories in battle nor their other achievements through their upbringing, but if asked, the Hollow Knight had a few moments they prided themselves of, events and milestones, framed and adorning the halls of their mind. Most of them were dear to them solely for the feeling of peace that they brought, particular moments often related to fulfilling their duty and expectations, or exceeding those. Their happiness seemed tied to such things, regardless of how bittersweet it might be.

Many memories filled these halls, one more melancholic than the other, but however flawed, these memories were all that they had in this waking world. After their shell and carapace gave up on them entirely, there was nothing left to them but to roam the Abyss among their siblings, or perhaps melt into nothingness once more. If anything would dare to last, it was those memories. Halls untainted, untarnished, that the Radiance could desecrate and tear and turn into a painful place, but whenever she let go of it, it was back in one piece.

They held onto it strongly, too strongly perhaps. Strong enough to weaken them. But these memories were still theirs, and that she could not rob from them.

One of the memories that they prided themselves the most was how they had walked with a raised head into their Temple and tomb, and felt their father’s touch against their shell one last time. They had held on to their tears, held on their hollowness at its hardest trial, and they succeeded. Their father’s last sight of them was nothing besides exactly what he had expected out of them, and that was one of the few memories that comforted them in their eternal prison. 

Very rarely their father touched them, be it a brush of his fingers against their cloak, or a firmer grip to straighten their armour. His hands were always tucked within his robes, working with mold or the Void he managed sparingly, and always very warily. Hands which were small, delicately clawed, and often unseen by most retainers and citizens. There wasn’t much for them to feel on the surface of their bodies, but their shell felt the most, however dampened that feeling might be when compared to the feeling living bugs felt. Their father bid them farewell with such a rare thought, a goodbye in form of silence, brilliant and brave, with a caress to the side of their shell.

Those same hands more often than not were seen holding his head when there was no one else in the room, as if his crown weighted too much at times. None of it; what weighed his head was his heart that was poisoning him from inside, mourning and aches and regrets, pains that nights didn’t heal, and like an infection on its own, they rotted the Wyrm from the inside. He seemed shorter, as days passed. His glow was fainter, dull, as if nothing truly had his determination anymore, and his drive had become desperation only. To see him walk with them for the last time was a sight to break their heart. Their king was exhausted, dulled, and they wondered partially if it was dreading the sacrifices coming due in the future, or was it due to the costs already paid.

They would enter the Temple of the Black Egg and never return, and they would go in without such an answer. Perhaps it was for the best that the King remained so aloof and distant, what other blessing could they ask for now, in their final walk, besides to be free of the awareness that somebody would live on outside missing them, or perhaps that their existence carried no weight in that crown’s dip at all? Either option was a curse and a burden, and uncertainty seemed to hurt less, would hurt less, in the eternity that would spend just by themselves. 

The Hollow Knight couldn’t begin imagining how it would be like in there. It was a dark place, not cut to be comfortable nor pleasant for a vessel did not require nor notice such things. They did, but they weren’t bothered. In theory, the enraged Goddess would be bound in a thing that had no thoughts, no emotions, and no voice. The range of control she might have in them was debatable between none at all, for her control seeped into beings through their dreams and thoughts, or some sort of mechanical but clumsy control. In case of the later, they nailed their prized armour on their carapace, and the rings it had been forged with would make it easier to chain the Pure Vessel in their sarcophagus. 

She wouldn’t talk to them as there was no mind that she could push herself in, there weren't thoughts for her to establish communication. They had no emotions, none that she could use against them. It would be a quiet and uneventful prison, they had assumed. An eternity that perhaps they could will themselves to be unconscious and it would pass like an exhausted evening rest, and never to wake, like the Dreamers who would simply sleep and never wake again.

_ What a fool they were. _

There was anxiousness in the White Palace as that day neared, but none of it kindled any sort of thought or reaction from the Pale King. Only a wariness, a fear that at the last moment, something would go wrong. He kept close watch on the Dreamers, but they seemed ready to play their part when it was time. The Pale King’s many feet clicked a quiet, small patterned noise as he walked, his robes hiding his many wings and elongated body, making him look more like the bugs of Hallownest who rarely had so many limbs, unless they hailed from Deepnest. The Wyrm that wanted so much these common bugs to follow him, refers themselves to him, too went some lengths to make himself like them, and everything he did was seeking to fulfill their needs. 

If the cost to provide was to hand the Abyss his children and the only one he raised to the infection, then be it. But he didn’t carry that cost with ease, not at all. Their last walk had been long, and ended at the center of the Temple of the Black Egg. As the chains were pulled and readied, and the King checked the seals he would embed with light, they heard him mutter quiet, faint words, not unlike a prayer.  _ No cost too great _ , as if at that moment, he felt it gnawing in the Hollow Knight the desperation to stop the binding process before it began. As if in that moment, he knew - and it transpired that he knew - that his Hollow Knight desperately wished this did not have to be this way. 

The Pale King never wanted things to be this way. He left the room when chains and seals were placed, and then they were alone. For a moment, their only company were their thoughts, the fierce hope they gripped on, the ghost of his father’s last touch, and the words they would never permit themselves to forget. Only the faint light of the seals accompanied them now, along the sinking awareness that they missed them already. They needed to sleep, fast, and to hunt that feeling away before it grounded itself, they were hollow, were they not? They could not permit such thoughts to fester and taint such a thing.

And they never saw the Wyrm again except in awful dreams, concocted by her rage and her spite. That the Hollow Knight remained tall, quiet and hollow through it all was a statement of their strength, they believed. Not enough for the task at hand, but something venerable on its own, they hoped. A monumental task, that they carried out in the best way they could. If only it had been an impossibility that they managed to achieve. But it wasn't. The Hollow Knight pulled plenty of miracles from their sleeves but they did not pull that one out. They who challenged time and death and bordered immortality and the decay of memory, they did not win that battle against the infection. Not so Pure, after all.

And even after it all, amazed them how difficult it was to convince their sibling that it was not the end of the world that they had a mouth and tongue and that they could eat despite not feeling hunger or taste. They felt the texture and the temperature at best. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but wasn't uncomfortable either. But for the Ghost of Hallownest, however, it seemed to bother them greatly somehow. They took great offense in the fact they could feel the carcass down their empty carapace and then gone into the void of their bodies. They could feel the weight for a little, before that was gone as well. How exactly that worked was far beyond the Hollow Knight's understanding, the Pale King had never solved that mystery, and it mattered not how many times they explained to their sibling that  _ they did not know how it worked _ , they asked once again, once every handful of minutes if they were to make estimates.

And they tried to make the experience less disturbing. They ate as well, so their sibling wouldn't feel alone in their misery. That was a working strategy, for trust the smaller vessel to have a competitive nature underneath it all that wed beautifully with their innate stubbornness. But being capable of enduring the process didn't prevent them from complaining through it, until they decided they were done for the day and there were no more crawlids on plain sight at the Crossroads. It was then and only then that they made their way up back to Dirtmouth. Their sibling helped them by getting ahead with their nail, not an easy task for it was impossibly heavy for a vessel of their size, but the Hollow Knight aided them on getting it up the well. Then, themselves. Their leaps were short, their hand at the stony edge for a moment, felt like it wouldn't be strong enough to haul them up. But they did make it, crawling out of the tight caverns to step on the frontier of a small town forgotten in dirt and a cemetery to the other side.

There was something different in Dirtmouth. The winds coming from the King's Pass brought with it a faint warmth not unlike smoke, one that they couldn't recall having felt before. The dust slightly suspended above the town was slightly tinted, a bit red with the lights coming from the other side of town. There was music in the air, an accordion playing a carnival melody in repetition, as if testing the attuning of the instrument, far far away. There was colour in Dirtmouth’s very air, and it was a bleeding red. Before they would bring themselves to make a question, their sibling ruptured the silence with what felt like a roar in the Hollow Knight's mind.  _ "Grimm is back!" _

It was the only explanation their sibling offered them, before they bent a little, curling into themselves. The spell they did was not of soul nor shadow, but rather something else entirely. It was not unlike those crystals in the mines above Hallownest. Even at the time of the Pale King, they were a mystery. Energy housed within mineral, it was strange but not particularly bound to anything. Not the creation of a Higher Being as far as the Wyrm knew, not like the vegetation of Greenpath was part of Unn's dreams. These crystals might as well be water or stone, existing in their own manner and harbouring strange energies within. Their sibling seemed to gather such a thing on themselves, lining the ground around them with those pale, rosy crystals before they unleashed that energy.

Like a slingshot, they snapped forward, quick as a projectile towards the other side of the town and away from sight. The crystals burst from the intensity of their departure, enough force rocking the Hollow Knight’s tattered cloak, and the Grimmchild, who had stayed behind, for a moment nearly brought pity to the Hollow Knight to see the manner in which the little red bug looked at their parting warden. However, that emotion only lasted a moment before the little terror looked at them and let out a simple, disdainful yelp. "Myeh."

It was not the Grimmchild that was deserving of some sort of pity or sympathy. The little bug furled his wings around their body, and in a wisp of red light in a flash, it was gone from sight, surely to catch up with the Ghost of Hallownest in whatever place they were heading to in a hurry. It was not the Grimmchild that ought to be pitied here, the bug that shared their sibling’s size too shared of their tenacity and unwillingness to stay put. They fit rather well together, travelling companions of a similar breed, quick and curious and eager to fire first and make questions later, the flying ward with enough tricks of his own to prevent himself from getting lost. It was the Hollow Knight that couldn’t keep up, even if they wished to. They didn’t know if they had the strength in their legs anymore to make their pace much faster than a simple walk - they might try, but they might lose their balance as well.

Damaged as they were, if they fell down, the process of getting up would be shamefully slow. They could sit down, they supposed, and wallow in the misery of their current circumstance, but they chased off those thoughts as quickly as they came. They had a sibling to accompany, younger and faster than themselves. And they wouldn’t ever catch up if they remained bolted on the dirt as they were. They resigned themselves to this, that their great nail served for nothing besides being a stilt, an extra support to distribute their weight, as they made their way into the small town with its circular shelled roofs.

Very few homes were lit up from the inside, and most were barred closed as if they had never seen anyone in an entire age to come. Perhaps they hadn’t. The inhabited homes were those closer to the town’s center, where the lumafly lamps were placed, as well as an iron bench that seemed the only public resting spot in the place besides the dirt and the tombstones. None of the City of Tear’s fountains and benches, the stores and homes lined up one next to the other. Beautifully kept and very much alive the last time they had visited it. Not many times, truly. The Pale King isolated himself in the White Palace often, and the Knights and Soul scholars rarely took them anywhere without a purpose. But they remembered, anyway. They were nothing but very attentive to detail and a hoarder of memories.

Hornet hadn’t spoken of the inhabitants of the small town, but spoke of the place overall. Supposedly, it was safe and inhabited by a few capable and friendly bugs. If they ever needed it, they could request their help for anything they wished, she would make sure to repay them for whatever they needed. The suggestion was something of a last resort, in case of any emergency in case of her absence, but even so, it sounded a little far-fetched of an idea. When she wasn’t there at their newfound house - one they could see from here with a small staircase preceding the entrance and a taller roof - the Hollow Knight didn’t move. Even if they were to venture themselves in this little town, how would they even regard these people? A mute, and unlike their sibling, they either would be seen as a threat with their height and great nail, or as harmless and easy prey as the cripple they were. Did they want to try their luck with the inhabitants? No. Besides, there was nothing that they needed that these people could give them. 

The few times they had been outside of that home, the town had been empty as far as they remembered. Not a single soul to witness the Hollow Knight crawl into the small doorway, nor any to witness them crawl out. Their pride, or whatever remnant of it that they might have and that made them stretch their back as much as their body would allow, their pride was grateful for having no witnesses. They were not the Pure Vessel their father hoped for - not Hollow, not the offspring he wanted, not the heir nor his pride - but it was what the Hollow Knight wanted to be. It had been how they carried themselves, as if that was their foreseeable future and not binds and forgottenness. Even now, they found it in themselves the trained tendency to raise their head a little so they did not see their feet, only the path ahead, inclining their horns a little backwards.

There was no one in Dirtmouth to witness the desperate, pitiful and meager remnants of that vanity. Or at least they thought so, as they heard the equally slow steps of a bug, and saw them making the corner from one of the houses. He was not a threat, that was the first thing they spotted. The bug was clearly old, walking in a slow pace and with his shell a dull gray colour, age hadn’t been kind to him. From the floor to the tip of their horns, he was perhaps twice the height of their sibling, held at the same standard. Still half of the Hollow Knight’s height, even with their bent posture. The elderly bug seemed to spot them, then raised his eyes to them along the great nail to their head. He did not seem afraid, thankfully. 

“Ho, traveler.” The bug greeted, and the Hollow Knight bowed their head slightly in return. They were not eager to attempt conversation. Besides their direct family and the people assigned to teach them specific skills, all of these people were aware of what they were. They never could recall interacting with anyone that was simply unknowing of it all. Someone that spoke to them, and expected an answer. That saw in them perhaps all that the Pale King wanted them to see - a mute knight of pale shell and ringed armour, and as such, was a synonym of safety, a representative of the things the Pale King prized the most in his subjects. Loyalty, politeness, intelligence, and strength of nail arm. 

Surely the Hollow Knight looked nothing like that anymore. All the same, common bug looked at them and seemed to see something else, something that wasn’t what they truly were. They weren’t comfortable, no. They gripped their great nail a little bit tighter, despite the bug being no threat. The stranger seemed to don’t notice the tension their carapace, but saw their silence as an invitation to continue. “I don’t think I have seen you in Dirtmouth before. Are you with my friend, the quiet one? You two are strangely alike, with those nails and horns.” 

It was such an anguish. To be asked things that they could not answer, their voice nonexistent regardless of how they felt it in their chest, a kind of tension, words harboured within but never uttered. Those jaws of theirs made no sound, even if they tried. The people they usually interacted with understood their quietness, and expected little to no reasoning from their part. It used to feel like an empty interaction, but also a very familiar one. They found comfort in their idleness and their silence. But now, knowing the expectation was another and not being able to deliver… They felt useless, and out of place. Their father was wise in hiding them from sight. The silence was only broken by the strangely insistent old bug. “...You are the quiet sort too, are you not?”

Marvelous that he could conclude as much. The Hollow Knight, besides being entirely inept in the current circumstance, they still found it in themselves the desire to be polite. They had seen it before, hadn’t they? It was all that they had ever done, watched the retainers talk and tinker and discuss the events of the Hallownest outdoors that the Hollow Knight would never be informed about directly, but they were eager to learn either way. They were a child of those halls, expecting from themselves the same composure, the same elegance, the same politeness and the dutifulness of all those they saw but rarely were noticed by. Did the Knights even know how they listened to every story they spoke of? Of their battles, of their travels, of the smiles they received, gifts and praise and intrigue? 

They had lived through these people, through second-hand experiences. And they knew that in their place, none of the Great Five Knights of Hallownest would dismiss an elderly bug’s chatter, unless there were lives at risk and beyond the bug’s step. There wasn’t. So the Hollow Knight endured. Some things they learned from that life came naturally. The prose of their speech with their sibling, the carefulness of their movements, the comfort in idleness and silence. Other things, such as being the target of a stranger’s chatter, that made them quite alarmed. None of that alarm, however, transpired on their features, for the bug seemed to take their silence as confirmation and consent to continue. They couldn’t even say that there were features for the elderly bug to judge an answer from. A vessel was terribly plain and void of any expression. “I just saw them speeding off that way, towards the tents. I have come out to see it, the noise is just unmistakable.”

The noise? Did they mean the music? The elderly must be unaware how rare music could be, and how loud and suffocating silence could become after a while. Music, like painting and like arts were the signs of a thriving kingdom, one inhabited by conscious bugs capable of all the things the Pale King highly esteemed. Intelligence to explore, strength to serve and defend, love to adore, the freedom to live. To hear music in this town where the only noise was the wind was refreshing. The Hollow Knight always heard music somewhere in the White Palace, and this one was everything unlike it, but a lulling thing nonetheless. “That creepy carnival has returned, just as I thought I had seen the last of it. It was like this the last time as well.”

The carnival in question was blocked from sight due to the home that the elderly bug had just emerged from. As they moved their head to see it, the stranger seemed to notice the movement, and took a couple steps into the aged, paved road so they could make room for the large vessel to step along and see it. And they did, warily moving their great nail along and burying its tip on the old cobblestone.

It was only a few tents in bright red colours, surrounded by exquisite torches. In the center, the largest tent was now the largest building in Dirtmouth, which of course wasn’t a great compliment, but it was indeed a very large tent. They didn’t even know tents could be so large, being held up by whatever inner structure they possessed and many ropes tied to nails buried on the dirt. From within, red lights glowed, and lit up the floor before the tent’s opening. Two bugs, tall and masked, stood on the entrance, seeming unfazed by the dirt below their bodies. It was quite a sight, and it made them think of what stories they knew of travelling carnivals and circuses. “These tents appeared just out of nowhere, and they come with this dreadful music and horrific masks… Not to speak of the disturbance when they train their performance!”

They turned their head once more to the elderly bug. Surely for a creature used to so much desolation in this forgotten town he lived in, he either would love the company and life of such a carnival, or entirely despise it. They doubted a middle term could be achieved with older residents. They felt like Ze’mer, in a way. A stranger to everything, carrier of a terrible outsiderness, and yet, somewhat in awe at the things they saw even if they were so incredibly common for these people. In all of their life, they heard more than did. To see the world that the Knights spoke of, even if it was just Hallownest itself… It frightened and amazed, both. 

“I understand that the little one has a liking for it and that foul Troupe Master Grimm. They would rest here at this iron bench with the Troupe Master’s child, inseparable those two.” The elderly bug just wasn’t done, they supposed. They wondered what it was that had them speaking of such things to the Hollow Knight. Was it because they looked like the Ghost of Hallownest, or would the old bug simply rant on to whoever had crossed their path tonight? Perhaps a mix of both. “For them alone I keep myself from having a word with that gentleman, an earful for the noise his Troupe makes. Travelers have no respect for the elderly, I say. If you’re heading in, perhaps you could convince him to keep it low?”

The Hollow Knight only but tilted their head to the elderly bug. That too was something the Knights would speak of, the willingness some people had to ask favours from strangers, particularly those crested and of some decent reputation. As Knights of renown, of course there were requests to everywhere they went, supplications to meet with the King, as if the Wyrm wasn’t a rare sight even for the Knights themselves. It was not unlike the requests the Pale King himself would sit through and listen, and try to bring a solution to the supplicating bug regardless of how foolish of a trouble it might be. The Hollow Knight stood through countless days like these, and not once did the Pale King treat requests as if they were petty or unworthy of their time.

They supposed that they couldn’t tell either the elderly bug or the Troupe Master anything, but they would like to fulfill that request if only they could. Their silence once more answered for the Hollow Knight, and answered wrongly. “...I don’t think you could. I am sorry to bother you with my ramblings. Call me Elderbug. I have tasked myself with warning travelers about the lands below the well but you seem like the adventurous sort, and given the company you keep, they must have shown you how it's like down there already. Farewell, traveler. I suppose I must have taken enough of your time.”

He had taken enough of the Hollow Knight's time, but they couldn't find it in themselves to resent the elderly bug for it. Despite how glad they were to see him walk towards the iron bench and finally put an end to the vessel's discomfort, they supposed that no harm was done. It was not his fault, truly. This town was minuscule, and he must have worn out all the other possible interactions they could have here, having to resort to talking to strangers and travellers, as rare as they may be. Like the town itself, the elderly bug standing on his own in this forgotten place was a pitiful sight. Dirtmouth hadn't always been like this, if the number of closed houses were anything to go by. As the breathing mouth of the Kingdom below, it must have seen once quite the influx of people and goods once. 

As the elderly bug turned their back to them, the Hollow Knight permitted themselves to raise their nail once again, and walk the faintly paved road towards the tents. They weren't certain why they were following their sibling - if they had hoped that the Hollow Knight would follow, they would have waited for them. The prospect of more interactions such as this was both a terrible thought as it was a curious one. They knew that there was nothing healthy nor proper on being wary of strangers as they were. It wasn't becoming of one Knighted. Nonetheless, they felt uncertain as they approached the tents, and the masks of the two tall bugs set by its entrance turned to them. They said nothing, only watched as if the Hollow Knight had interrupted a conversation, one that they knew they weren’t having prior to their approach.

If they wanted to stand on their way, they could have. But they only remained where they were, watching them as they bent over carefully to enter the main tent. It wasn't only light that seeped from within, but also music. The red fabric that composed it was exquisite, embroidered with a pattern composed of a familiar mask, and within it a structure was set. The entrance was walled by several poles and ropes that held both the structure of the tent as it raised tall seats, all aisles turned to a large main ring and tall roof. From the entrance they could already stand as upright as they wished. Odd lamps and staves of unfamiliar design housed a fire that seemed redder than any other, coloured somehow, possibly due to the crimson surroundings or whatever cloth and oil that lit them up.

At the edge of the ring, a burly bug played their accordion. The melody wasn't loud in this vast tent, but the carnivalesque song surely was powerful enough to escape the muffling tent and be heard all the way in Dirtmouth's streets. The bug was masked identically to the beings outside, and he remained just quiet and focused on their instrument, seeming to not acknowledge the vessel as they walked from the shadowy entrance towards the well lit ring, where past the curtain of shade and bright red lights, they finally had sight of the duo standing at its heart. Their sibling, and a tall moth. 

Not just any moth. Cursed be them for not remembering where it was that they had heard of carnivals such as these with their ominous masked fellows, burnt perfume and red fires. Their feet took them there, one step at a time, one move of their great nail against the coated floor at each league. They approached their sibling and the crimson being under beaming spotlights, their eyes set on the one with torch-like eyes that watched in turn their very move from over the spiked furs of his cloak and folded wing. 

The first time they had heard of this carnival in particular had been at the brink of Hallownest's collapse. The infection kept spreading and less and less the royal retainers left the White Palace, fearful of the world beyond that less bugs returned from. Her brilliant dreams already lived in the slumber of many civilians, both those that wandered past the gates of the now City of Tears, as those that hadn't seen the outside of those at all. There was little hope for these bugs, who smiled at a moment and attacked their own kin at the other. Families were being separated, and bugs were being escorted out, when not killed or dragged out of the city by force. The King's head rarely stayed upright at this point when there was anyone but them in a room. He mourned. He loathed the sickness of the city, he despised the orders he gave, and how he went from attempting to save those haunted by her to downright trying to salvage the healthy as much as he could. The gates opened no more, and his Knights visited the palace no more. The bugs outside needed them the most, and there they stayed. 

The White Lady rarely sent word anymore, even less came to the White Palace herself. But this time, she did. She feared it would be the last, and there was grievance in her visit, a foreboding farewell to the manner she carried herself and chose her words. She had made her own arrangements for an isolation - in her very loved Gardens, and with Dryya for company, she would bind herself finally. She did not expect visitors, and did not hope to visit again, even after the infection was contained. It was unmistakable how much she loved her Wyrm, the pain in her words was a tearful note, and yet, to be around him brought her pain as well. A pain, regret and shame too great for her to keep coming. The Pale King respected her wish, but in a discrete despair. Between the two of them, he carried the weight of the cost the best. And yet, it was a weight. 

For that last time, they discussed Hallownest. How many would be lost before the Pure Vessel was ready? How many would return to the city when she left their dreams and minds? The Wyrm, in all his skills and foretelling, could not predict such. But there was hope, this was the way. Nonetheless, he had ordered vigilance and his Knights to keep an eye out for signs of impending doom, as if to fail-safe his own plans. Report any sighting of bugs uninfected but forsaking their intelligence and independence and deciding instead to live in a wild manner, or leave Hallownest entirely. Report any sightings of red flame and a crimson caravan setting up tents wherever the floor was plain enough. 

This was the sign of the Nightmare King's arrival, a Higher Being that like the one that plagued the dreams of common bug, he too lived only in that realm of essence. But he was not interested in the living, nor in the politics of Wyrms, creating kin or setting up kingdoms, but rather on wandering the world and seeking all places set to a ruthless end. He, a heart that walked the land in a form of his own construction, organic and alike moth, but not quite. A form made in their image, but unlike any other. No fares were asked to witness his performances, a terrifying circus of battles and dances and fright, as if the spectacle could give the common bug a taste of the nightmares of kin in despair. In the waking world he offered entertainment, a safe thrill, or a last comfort before their world were lost to any ailment that might plague them. In the dreaming world, the heart consumed those ill dreams, the last flame every Kingdom produced.

What the Hollow Knight hadn't expected from such an explanation was how bewildering of a sight the embodied Nightmare Heart was. They surely must be attuned somehow to beings like these, after so long basking in their glow, be it from dawn or flame, Higher Beings cast their influence on the former Pure Vessel and they soaked on it, found familiarity in them. They saw this being as they supposed a Dreamer would, saw them for the brilliant fire that transpired through those eyes, framed by a delicate face and the gentle curve of their pointed horns, black as coal. Everything in him was both sharp as it was elegant, a divine craft, thoughtfully carved, beautiful and terrible. The tent felt warm, like a last comfort before the inevitable end. 

The words they gave their sibling were a thought unbound, perhaps for once too fierce and alive for them to keep it quiet and below reach. They bowed their head to the Troupe Master, a gesture small in comparison to the decorum a Higher Being usually received, but in the lack of court and preparation, it was what they could do.  _ "The essence twin of scarlet flame, who lady fair and pale dreaded would herald our nest's demise… If this is the sight that precedes end, then it is a glorious one. Travelling last light, the Wandering King, an honour." _

The lights of this world were many. Pale beings carried the light of enlightenment, of soul and thought, family and tenderness, and were made to rule. To approach the common bug was to approach them to their own pale glow, a relationship of closeness and adoration, subservience through inevitable reason. To formalise law, to write down what was known, to build and to invent, those were the gifts pale lights brought. The Old Light, in all her brilliance, was dull and raw in comparison. She brought unity through mindlessness, and her law was written on instinct. Two lights didn't coexist without one somehow outshining the other. Understanding of this, the White Lady feared the addition of another light to their already existent conflict. The scarlet flame was a light of his own, that brought neither thing and settled for no land or people, but still risked being what it took to nullify the Wyrm's glow entirely.

He brought the heat, comfort and struggle, the gifts common to bug and beast both. The Nightmare Heart was a Higher Being of misery, and all the things that signified ultimately what it was to be alive. The clarity of the last moment was his light, naturally a rule that didn't last. They were but the embalming hands that took from other lights the last moments of their kingdoms. When the mindless beast and thoughtful bug both starved, it was in scarlet flame they basked the last time. When they feared war, when they loathed betrayal, when there was only darkness beyond and pending, then began his ephemeral, brief, wandering domain. No being to rule anywhere, but yet one that would inevitably rule all places for a while. No light she wanted in Hallownest at the time, but so fitting for this Kingdom now, and its Hollow Knight. 

"I hear you, dear Knight." The voice that sounded in this tent was low, hissed through. The Troupe Master, embodiment of the Nightmare Heart, was as organic as any bug. His voice seemed dry as if the fire within burned it through, dried his airways from nothing but ash and coal. Nonetheless graceful, with the words he chose and the well walked steps he took, until those lithe, black fingers were set on the sides of their shell and delicately raised it so they were facing him. "Oh, so long since I have last seen one of the breed of Wyrms, even less two. So long since I have been so warmly welcomed, too."

Those fingers and claws felt hot against their shell. The heat radiated through the Troupe Master's carapace as if he had just emerged from a hot spring. The counterpart to her radiance was his conflagration, and the Hollow couldn't help but to find themselves thinking, regardless of how ill of a thought that was, was how perhaps they would have preferred to coexist with flame rather than with sickness all that time in the temple. A Knight was but a soul that courted death and welcomed their endings, only but at every step of their journey finding something to do with the time they were given. Going down in flames rather than the sickness they were consumed by seemed so much more fitting of an end. Far more graceful too. If only Knights had a choice on what would be their final battle.

_ "I guess I should have warned you that he can hear."  _ Good things were not exactly meant to last, they supposed, and as such, their sibling cut the blissful enthralling the Hollow Knight had driven themselves in by adding a rather pointed thought. One that made them stir from where they were, and slowly bring themselves to raise their form entirely, or as much as it permitted. The Troupe Master was a rather tall bug, but even damaged as the largest vessel were, Grimm only came to be as tall as the Hollow Knight's shoulder. He could hear them, in the same manner their sibling could? One could wonder how that worked. Was it because Hallownest was truly at its end, and thus was at Grimm's rightful domain? Was it because of the very nature of his existence, a Higher Being that lived in the realm of minds, dreams and essence? They didn't know, and wouldn't ask. Somethings were better off left unbothered.

"I rejoice that you have not, dear friend." Grimm stated, his voice an amused and quiet sound, regarding their sibling with a pleased tune for a moment before tilting his face once more to the Hollow Knight before him… Knight that remained put, basking on the warmth of his hands and the sight of his light, as all dying things did. They could only wonder what it was that the Higher Being thought as he allowed them to linger on his warmth, going as far as to trace the shell on his palms with the soft underside of his thumbs, not the claws at their tips. Besides their thoughts, what else was clear to him? The pains in their heart and mind? If those were the things that the Nightmare Heart fed from, were they visible for the scarlet flame right now, or was this kindness prompted by nothing besides the Troupe Master's own grace?

Somethings were not for them to know, and truth be told, they did not want to know. There was a comfort in the unknown that might as well be shielding them from the harder truth and for a moment, they deluded themselves into thinking, wishful thinking, that the best alternative was true. For the moment, they choose to believe this kindness was towards them. They chose to believe there was knowing in those torched eyes, and this was a comfort handed for a wounded Knight, like a musician's lament, and not simply an act of tolerance from the Higher Being before them, who all but muttered the title in scorched breath and gentle hum. "Wyrmchild."

So they knew, after all. Not only of what they were made of, them and their sibling both, but knew what lived in the heart of the Knight before them. That word, as simple and plain as it might look, was forbidden in Hallownest. They no longer recalled who it was that had uttered it, in what circumstances they had been named so, but what was known was that it was never repeated again. It must already strain to have them there, a shade in their child's shell, the Pale King permitted no further disrespect. So long since they had last heard it, perhaps never to hear again. And here Grimm was, hauling that title from the depths of the vessel’s burning heart. His words returned, a tone more intense as those eyes of the Nightmare King glowed a little brighter. "I dance in the pyre of tragedy and Hallownest is a wondrous, unique stage. As much yours, as it is theirs."

All this time here in the Troupe Master's touch and they hadn't bothered to think how it was that their sibling was involved with the Higher Being. Or better yet, how was it that Ghost had made the Troupe Master's son their very own ward, to keep and feed and show the corners, beauties and dangers of Hallownest. That alone seemed like a story worth noting, worth telling to the royal musician, and surely one that the Ghost of Hallownest would tell, if prompted. Like a true Knight, their sibling must have stories to be sung. 

"They have secured their part in it, a starring role indeed, but you would honour the Troupe by taking a guest role. What do you think?" Where was the line between a circus play and the Nightmare Heart's own consumption of the hopelessness of bugs, they simply could not tell. But the Hollow Knight was wounded, slow, old, and possibly very dumb, for as Grimm spoke, all they could think of were of the plays they had not seen, the balls they had stood immovable through, and how much they earned to partake on what was, once, entirely deprived from them. "So long since I have last danced with one of the fine cut of Courts. Would you spare me a dance?"

The Troupe Master stepped back slightly, retreating his hands but keeping one extended for them to take. In the crimson lights of his tent, even the black of his wings and carapace seemed tinted slightly maroon, as if it was him that coloured the fires, his features mimicked in the masks of the bugs outside and woven in patterns of the circus' very tent, like the White Palace that replicated at every step the Pale King and his resemblance. Grimm might be a wandering King, but these were his halls nonetheless, and his musician of choice was already playing. What kind of beast they would have to be to even think of denying him was beyond their ability to guesswork. And alas, they were no beast, but cursed progeny Knighted. It was in their very nature to take that hand even if the world was coming apart outside, and nothing would stop them now. 

They were more than ready to accept their offer when the space between them was taken by a rather small vessel. They leaped, then leaped again with the aid of those monarch wings of theirs, that ruffled on the air as they pushed them upwards a little more, enough to reach their eye level for a moment. Too was it enough to get the attention of both beings in the room to look down at them as they landed on the floor, nail on hand. They had not noticed when their sibling drew it, and by the tilt of the Nightmare King's head, nor had he. The little Ghost of Hallownest might not look like it, but to draw a nail was a challenge and a menace, both. The interruption was both impolite and extremely fitting of one of their sibling’s kind. Ghost only lacked the title, but was as much of a Knight as any of the Great Five. Knights who pulled their nails mid conversation, lived and breathed through their combat, and served statements and healing and judgement through it.

_ "No, no and no."  _ They said, standing to face Grimm with all the severity of their hollowed, empty shell. Their nail was a gleaming beauty under the red light, its paleness untarnished by scarlet flame, as well as their face. Lights didn't mix, they outshined the other, and even here the absolute whiteness of their sibling's shell didn't take in colour nor falter. They were adamant to be heard, and heard they were.  _ "No fighting them, fight me. You said we would." _

The Hollow Knight heard the invitation to a dance, not to a fight, but truth be told they most likely would have accepted either even if they succeeded at none. For either purpose, they were like the nail they owned, a single step from coming apart. Before any other, this was a reality their pride would have ached at the thought of admitting or making visible. But that pride didn’t ail their sibling, who intervened as they saw fit, to preserve one without a sense of self-preservation. Even if the Troupe Master was no common stranger, there was no hiding anything from those red eyes, be it the purpose of their existence or the fate that befell them. He should know and understand why the Hollow Knight conceded to their sibling's interruption - before another light, their kinship was a deeper bond, and they would stand by their decisions before the world around them. They were willing to permit  _ one _ thing to stop them from accepting the King’s invitation, they supposed.  _ "My sibling has wisdom to them, Troupe Master. I am in no condition to offer a dance befitting of the Nightmare Heart." _

Their post-mortem couldn't possibly last much longer, and the thought of a premature end to it in a dance of Knight and flame was terribly charming, regardless of the input they could imagine coming from either Hornet or the Ghost of Hallownest should they hear such thought. Their life was a rare thing to have surviving, and they were both protective of it. Perhaps more than the Hollow Knight themselves. For them, for kin, they could quietly damper that thought, end it like candlelight with a cup. Grimm could have taken a degree of offense, but it hardly seemed like it. He turned those eyes down, to their sibling, then to Hollow Knight once more. The waiver of their hand was a dismissive flaunt, as if he could with just that lighten entirely their sibling's tension and any thought of unbecoming opposition in the largest vessel's mind. 

"So hard on yourself, Wyrmchild. Very well. But do not think this is the last time you shall hear of my invitation." The Troupe Master explained, before curling their arms back into their exquisite wing and cloak, the spiked fur looking either soft to the touch or prickly as thorns, only touch could tell. The Troupe Master seemed like a fine warrior, if their sibling's eagerness to meet them in combat served as proof, which led to the thought that like the peculiarities of this alike-but-not-quite moth creature, these texture of those wings might as well be entirely arbitrary, and alter to suit the Nightmare King's momentary intentions, like a vessel's carapace that most of the time was solid and firm, but could be willed into being both or nonexistent. "As for you, my dearest friend, I apologise but I must refuse dancing with you this time. In this realm, at least. As you know, our ritual is due, and that invitation is pending a response."

The Troupe Master's words lit up a pathway in the Hollow Knight's mind that they hadn't stopped to consider just yet. They felt like a fool for not questioning such before. For all they knew of the Nightmare Heart and the Troupe he travelled with in these lands, one thing they did not know was how it was that he found these decaying Kingdoms. What kind of timepiece was it that ticked within the Heart and determined when it was time to travel to either place, and how was it that he had his fill of the nightmares and hopelessness of bugs. It was very much beyond them. It shouldn't surprise that there was some ritual involved, perhaps like every Higher Being that employed tools and common minds to their bidding, ritual which must be related to the Ghost of Hallownest in some form. The Hollow Knight had permitted themselves to think it was kindness and politeness alone that led the scarlet flame to keep up with their battle-bound sibling. A foolish notion, they supposed. All things had intention and purpose, and the Hollow Knight tasted once more of their own naivety and good will, and the world that separated them from true Knights. So much like their mother, they thought. 

Their sibling seemed to consider those words carefully, standing painfully still where they were, nail in minuscule hand as they looked up towards the Troupe Master. The details of that ritual went unsaid, but the Hollow Knight imagined it could be unpleasant, somehow. Enough for their sibling to be willing to postpone it for a while longer. They put their nail away, their mothwing cloak once more falling in place with one side slightly heavier than the other due to the charms they wore within the inner breast.  _ "...Not yet." _

"To our luck, there is reason for me to stay a while longer. The Troupe has no known future destinations just yet, and Hallownest is not yet barren of fire. New flames grow in her absence, as they dream outside her light once again. The Grimmkin are already at it." The Troupe Master explained, although he probably needn't to do so. If it was part of his nature of serving the nature of his Troupe so readily, in such plain but mysterious manner, they could not tell. But nonetheless Grimm spoke, explained, and to every question he might have answered, many more grew in its wake. They were indeed the twin of an Old Light they knew well, and for the first time, uncomfortably, they mused their relation to that Higher Being. 

They looked entirely different and Higher Beings seemed extremely unlike one another, but if there was some similarity, was the Hollow Knight too much in awe of the last light to notice? What did that ritual entail? Another kind of enthralling, another kind of infection or hive mind was there to plague the dreams of the inhabitants of Hallownest? If so, that was a despairing thought. One they hadn't considered, and now they found themselves extremely naive and easily charmed. If the White Lady was wary of this red-clad omen, shouldn't they be so as well? Her wisdom was rarely - if ever debated - and her care for the bugs of Hallownest was unending. They had so many questions, questions which were difficult to recall when they looked into red eyes and saw them half lid, expression sharpening into a near-smile.

The Hollow Knight was undeserving of that title, curse them. They were a fool. An easily enchanted fool. As their sibling spoke once more, they turned their eyes towards them, even if only one could properly see.  _ "Wonderful. May I take Grimmchild back?" _

At the mention of the child, who the Hollow Knight had also entirely forgotten and not bothered to wonder the whereabouts of, the Troupe Master stood a bit more upright. Their wing and cloak trembled, as if strong winds were set on ruffling the fur, and as if summoned by name, from within the cloak the Grimmchild emerged, head popping from the neck of it, two heads for a single furred collar. They were ridiculously alike, both beings, with their fanged jaws and white faces with a slight heart-shaped mask, darkly contoured eyes with long tear trails from top to bottom, and the prominence of beautifully arched short horns, only slightly reminiscent of their sister's own. Unlike any bug they had ever seen, and unmistakably alike. Arbitrarily constructed in this way as the Nightmare Heart must have willed, breathed them into existing and everything they owned in it's own design and image, in whatever manner they saw fit. A masterpiece of style unmatched, like all things Higher Beings breathed life into. The Grimmchild looked down at the Ghost of Hallownest and they produced a rather content noise, of eagerness and spitten fire, that died before it could reach their sibling. 

Regardless of the Nightmare King's own reasons and desires to remain here and keep up with the Ghost of Hallownest's shenanigans, the Grimmchild seemed far more transparent in his intentions. He had a liking for wandering, and bonded with their sibling through combat and immolation. What they didn't have in size, they had in energy and restlessness. Surely he would have squirmed his way out of his father's grasp if not for the Troupe Master's words quickly keeping him still. "Permit me to enjoy my child's company for a while longer, my friend. I do miss him terribly when the two of you go out together. Return after a while, I'm sure he will be looking forward to travelling again."

The Grimmchild already was looking forward to travelling, but he did not oppose their father's wish too much, only offering a displeased mellow before tucking their white muzzle underneath their father's own. A part of the Hollow Knight that they didn’t understand nor knew exactly how to name died a little from watching. They felt exhausted, suddenly, enough to lace their fingers tighter on the handle of their once great nail and will themselves stand a while longer. There had been a degree of physical effort today, but not enough to make them feel like curling back in the house Hornet had seized for them, and simply let their consciousness escape their grasp under the ray of lumafly light that the murky window permitted in. This exhaustion had a name, they only didn’t want to utter it. A brew of envy, hurt and longing. A feeling of their own making, theirs and theirs alone.

Their distraction was enough that when they felt the touch to their mask, they startled a little where they stood. The eyes of the Nightmare King burned through their shell, looking at them directly and unwaveringly. How much of their emotions and thoughts they could read in the waking world was a mystery for the larger vessel, but they knew that some of it might have been caught by him, like a dream in a dreamcatcher. The Hollow Knight was used at this point of having no secrets anymore that hadn’t already been thrown at them in the worst manner possible. All thought, all hopes, all emotions weaponised. Whatever the Nightmare King chose to do with what they saw surely couldn’t be much worse than what she had done.

What he chose to do was to bring their attention back with a gentle touch, warm against their cracked shell, and the hint of a smile in that fanged mouth of theirs. To simply don’t tilt their head into the touch and rest right where they stood was an effort. “As for you, dear Knight, visit any time you so wish, the Troupe and I welcome you. The invitation stands, as does my promise to have our dance, sooner or later.”

_ “No, it does not.” _ The Ghost of Hallownest complained, but didn’t draw their nail to make their point. What ran in the head of their sibling they didn’t know. In fact, the more they thought of it, the more they cringed at the thought of how  _ unbecoming _ of a Knight that sort of composure was. But one thing the Hollow Knight understood was that their sibling fared better being themselves rather than holding themselves up to the same standard the Hollow Knight held themselves. They were no kin worth keeping if they were the sort that tried to change and frame their sibling into what they thought was proper and becoming to their own outdated standards. What use was there of a Knight’s composure in a Kingdom coming apart?

There was some use still, they supposed. This was its only use; to move their hand from their great nail, to take the hand at their shell and so carefully press its back on the surface, a little below the middle of their eyes as one feet set itself a little behind, and their head followed their body’s movement in a half bow. This was the only use of Knighthood and the teachings absorbed in corridors and hallways. This was the only King left for Hallownest to meet before it became as much of a wasteland as the barren fields past the Pass and Edge. And they were Hallownest’s last standing Knight, to treat with a shade of reverie the wandering last light. Fate was a spider, and weaved beautiful tapestries when it chose to.

_ “I look forward to it, Troupe Master.”  _ They thought, and when they raised their shell and returned the Nightmare King his hand, they caught the manner his eyes squinted at the same time his mouth curled their grin further up. A smile, beautiful and terrible, and most certainly fitting for Hallownest’s last light and a Knight’s last dance and battle. They did look forward to it, and they held that promise close to heart - if they could have it before that post-mortem ended and their body and shell fell apart below them, they would have no complaints. Nothing left for them in this Hallownest besides to stand by their siblings where they could, and to bask in a light one last time.

“Woe be me.” The Nightmare King said, retrieving his hand and furling his arm around his cloak not to hold it together, but to hold his child that seemed to be either slumping down and losing their grip on his father, or downright slipping quickly to a nap. “How do I enjoy a classic tragedy.”

Grimm was an unique Higher Being, they supposed. They had met it all, from a slug so very distant from the beings they dreamt that they could easily slip the mind, forget their existence entirely. They had met Higher Beings close to common bug as well, with the Pale King that welcomed supplicants in his hall and bothered with the simplicity of the walking world, praising arts and cherishing feasts. But none was as down to earth as Grimm, with his patchwork tent and strangely violent child, feet catching on the cloth that paved the ring’s floor and a strange lack of any court to circle him. Whatever quarters he kept for himself must be one cloth away from the ground, and another from his kin. Every Higher Being was unique in their own way and manner, but Grimm was particular even among them.

Unlike any other, and bewitching like misery, dronning everything else as the Nightmare King pinned the largest vessel on their sight and they knew, then, that for what they were they were damned to be this being, so easily lured to the lights of this darkened world for they who had lived once in time and light, they could no longer settle in the endless night. The awareness should teach them to be wary of them, wary of their own naivety, but they wondered how they would fare at that. Poorly, they supposed, by how insistent their sibling had to be to pull their attention away from the Troupe Master and his last comment. “Do dream of me.”

_ “Do not!”  _ The Ghost of Hallownest added, not handing the Troupe Master a farewell. The Hollow Knight didn’t think they had a choice on who would come to their dreams or not, but alas, they would like to see the Nightmare King in them nonetheless, with his sharply edged grin and his scorched voice and warm hands. Red flames, the last light. There was something so incredibly soothing in the patchwork of the carnival and the comfort of knowing it was warmth that met them at their end, before death itself. It was a hopeless ordeal they supposed, for both Hallownest as for themselves, to look forward to things when their time was brief and uncertain. But they did look forward to seeing the Troupe Master once again. His tent set so close to Dirtmouth, the place where theoretically they had taken residence. Just a few steps away. Maybe they had a reason to leave the house now. 

They bowed their head slightly, one last time, before turning to their sibling and permitting themselves to follow the very insistent smaller vessel. They supposed their sibling must have some reason behind their insistence to don’t let the Hollow Knight too long nor too close to the Nightmare King. There must be something more, possibly related to that mysterious and unknown ritual, that had the Ghost of Hallownest wary, trusting themselves around the Troupe Master but stretching it to no other. As kin, the larger vessel could only but recite old duties in their head, and remind themselves that they did not know their sibling’s reason but they must trust it, trust their cues and insistence as a signal that this call was theirs to make, and it was their duty to follow. 

But did they mourn it either way the moment they walked past the entrance of the tent and the wind that rushed through Dirtmouth was terribly cold in comparison to the main tent, the music now slightly muffled and distant, and the world seemed eerily dark even with the lumafly lamps lining the pathway before them. Their sibling was unbothered by such things, they knew, but the Hollow Knight… Ah, every moment in it was a brand of misery. Having met the vicious Old Light did little to them and their light-lured nature. Good or bad, it was their nature to bask on it. Not unlike the lumaflies unlit, flying at the rhythm of their own song around the lamp posts. They too sought what was missing in their life.

Always a light, someone to guide and follow, or fight and bind. A King they served and bowed to, hopes and expectations for them to fulfill, or a light for them to keep near, bear whatever she threw their way, endure her wrath. It was the life they knew, what they were built for. Built to be used and destroyed, truly, but it was their purpose just like any other. And regardless of that purpose offering good days or bad ones, the absence of it entirely was miserable. As they walked and the song grew distant, more and more they could feel that exhaustion creeping in. They would sleep indeed, and if the world had any mercy on them, they wouldn’t dream at all. Even good dreams were tainted by her, nightmares commonplace in this perishing kingdom. They didn’t trust their odds on meeting the Nightmare King there.

_ “You cannot encourage him.” _ Their sibling stated, still holding on their cloak as the Hollow Knight’s hand was always busy managing the great nail they supported part of their weight over. The accordion’s song truly arrived at the centre of Dirtmouth, signaled by an iron bench and stag station, but even now it was distant, nearly impossible to hear with the quietly shushing wind. Elderbug must have retreated into his home once again, they thought. There was no one up and walking in this town but them.  _ “He is a ruthless fighter, and I do not think you have quite yet sorted out how to say no.” _

One thing he had to credit their sibling with was with how they were far more perceptive than they let out. They were very much correct on that statement. They truly knew not how to say ‘no’, it was something that dragged itself against their nature and made them uncomfortable to state. The only thing their sibling did not manage to perceive was that rarely did the Hollow Knight have a refusal in their heart. It wasn’t the case of a ‘no’ sitting in their mind, never acted upon and never voiced. It was the absence of such entirely. If the Nightmare King would like to meet them in a battle and scorch their shell to ash and finally put a shade to rest back from the damned bowels from which they came, then the Hollow Knight was very much willing to engage it. Seemed inevitably, truly.

How could they not encourage their own destruction, as it was what they were made for?  _ “What can I do, if I do enjoy the classic tragedies?” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ghost of Hallownest really said "I'm not leaving my depressed and borderline suicidal sibling with the violent goth". Bless them for their wisdom.
> 
> What a fun thing to write. There is just so much misery involved in living, Hollow truly is great and unapologetically SAD. But there comes some food for thoughts, doesn’t it? How you can love something that used you and made you harm. It's a thing. Some folks just don’t stop loving what harmed them. But I do promise a healthier future.
> 
> THIS IS NOT A HOLLOW/GRIMM FANFIC. I mean, I love the ship, but it is peripheral here. A hint, perhaps, some implication of infatuation if you squint. I do like Hollow/Grimm but this is not the focus of this piece, so it won’t happen just yet. It's saved for the sequel work. If you enjoy slowburns tho… This is definitely something that might appeal to you.
> 
> Thanks to everyone that bookmarked and comment. Let me know what you think! You can reach out for me in discord if ya want, or instagram. ( Herja#8664 \ @riptaide )


	4. Lady Fair and Pale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings crawlers and cringers of my heart! More tags, another chapter, perhaps better edited? Let me know.
> 
> We update on the first couple hours of Fridays, Boston time. We abhor dawn in this household.

In their slumber, there was nothing but the never ending darkness they were envisioned in. That shade, their only hope of salvation, that coated the inner walls of their holy shell, they supposed they should be more familiar to it. More comfortable with it at least. If her departure also vanished with their ability to dream, then perhaps they should be thankful for the empty slumber they had, and the emptiness that met their consciousness once their eyes no longer saw.

But alas, they were not. And they willed themselves to wake like one lost to an appointment, late for some event at court, bothered awake in a jolt of the mind and their head, for their body remained as still and lethargic as it had been for the last hours. The Hollow Knight had no appointment, nothing scheduled for the next day, no parade to watch and no King to haunt with their presence. There was no voice calling for them to wake, nothing. But all the same, all it took was some awareness to sink into their unconscious mind, and they knew that they wanted nothing to do with it anymore. There were no poisonous dreams in their head anymore, but the emptiness left behind was not unlike a smoky mirror - if there was nothing to tamper with them, all that remained were the shade's reflection, their wandering thoughts and their own longings unanswered.

They couldn't say if these empty dreams were much better than having an enraged goddess in their mind. It probably was, if they thought about it objectively. But there were many things in her dreams that felt better too, despite it all. At least their Old Light was an enemy they could challenge time and time again, their spotless embodiment in the reign of dream, against her in all her absolution. They never won. But they were whole, then, all that they were and all they learned, all that they thought and all that they felt. Their flaws, their beauties. All of what they were and all that their father made them as. A brilliant, radiant knight, against a being they would never outshine, but as the speck of Wyrm that they were, they would hold her there forever if need be, to safeguard the true light and his Kingdom. They could have fought with her forever. They would have, if she didn't see their weaknesses laid not in the shell and armour they owned but in the shade that entrapped her.

Memories that hurt, faults taught and overlooked, all that they were and were not supposed to be. It was in that darkness that she found the worst of them, the keyhole for her to take over all of them. That was not a part of them that they looked at often, nor had the desire to revisit. A slumber without her distraction and tampering was just this… These loose thoughts and wishes of a mourning shade. Darkness, detachment, and the eventual wandering thought that one only needed to pull and they would come undone like a knitted piece. They questioned themselves, in that slumber. Not their hollowness, not their King, not their odds, but themselves. To sleep was no comfort, no, as it pitched them against such empty thoughts. And so, they focused sight back into the hollow of their only seeing eye, and woke.

Their home was slightly brighter than when they had gone to sleep. A couple lumafly lanterns were placed on the small, oval-roofed home - one over the corner table, another on the floor, where their sibling was seated with papers at their reach. Their mothwing cloak and soft, void back, was pressed against the Hollow Knight's arm and side. They didn't have much room for themselves in this home, and their position was not the best. With their eaten half turned towards the floor, their shell parallel to the ground and over a malformed, thin pillow, the rest of their body was all but a semicircle, trying to stay out of the way and not take too much space. Their ruined cloak, once white, covered their body as much as it could. Only by comparing its colourless, gray hue, did they realise their sibling's were more of a dark blue colour rather than only a darker gray. The undertone was highly discrete, but suited them, they thought.

The Hollow Knight stirred, only a little bit so. Their only arm unfurled from their position, and carefully they exchanged the support their sibling had on their chest and side for their palm, just so they could rearrange their own back the slightest bit - they didn't know if their sibling was awake or not. Might not be, and they would dread to wake them up. 

Hornet noticed the movement, however. They hadn't seen much of her from the position of their head, but they knew she was around. A single noise besides the wind filled this room, and it was not the breathing of the Grimmchild, back with his father as he was, but rather the sound of a needle and the weaving of gossamer. A faint sound, truly, with the clicking of metal and claw, and the passing of gossamer against itself, the texture a soft but slightly dry noise. As quiet as the wind outside, it wasn't bothering them at all, but given that she stopped her weaving, perhaps their movement had bothered her instead. "It is good to see you awake. Are you well?"

She spoke quietly, her voice uncharacteristically soft. It was a rare thing, they supposed, to catch the Daughter of Hallownest off her poise and battle-born readiness. For the while, she all but shed it away, and engaged in the art of her people that they rarely had the chance to see her engage in before. The weavers of Deepnest were a reclusive but talented folk, with a mentality of survivalists. Each mother fought to feed their offspring, no exceptions nor pity for weaklings. And somehow, they still found it in themselves to have a production of silk that exceeded their own consumption and use for it, despite them doing everything with it, be it the ties to their buildings as well as their spells. 

They were a mysterious folk, and Hornet's existence didn't make the weavers any better known, or less of a mystery at the White Palace. Herrah the Beast rarely did visit, and her looks frightened most bugs. She was a hardy bug and did not speak unless it had a purpose, purpose which was often a cunning and devious one. Not evil, they had heard the Pale King assure royal retainers time and time again. Herrah was by far not evil, nor cruel. But she did live in a land of no lights, where instinct was braided along a complex hierarchy, an order that by all means worked in mysterious ways, standing over a common ground that all beasts in Deepnest shared, their prizing of family, silk and sustenance. The same theory of a common ground was often brought up whenever the Hive, the Mosskin or the Mantids were mentioned. Why did they function without sovereign order, light and law, but Hallownest’s heart could not?

The answer was a simple one: because all these people met at the Capitol if they so wished. A Kingdom wasn't a villa, nor tribe or town. It was where all kinds met. And a moth might be seen as unworthy of living by any passerby mantis, and it was the Wyrm's role to hold all lives on the same height, and provide enough that even the most unique bug could find reason in themselves to obey the order and law so to take some use or advantage from the King's domain. To travel, rest or trade. To enlighten was to offer something for all needs, offer a chance to all those who sought it, and to treat them all in the same light, and the same kindness. The bugs of Deepnest weren't interested in providing an environment as he did, nor were the Mantis Tribe or the Mosskin. It was a ruler’s duty to, with the trust handed to him, to provide such a thing should they wish it.

When Hornet visited, it was with correspondence woven in silk, and she was not there for the father they shared nor her sibling. In those days, the Daughter of Hallownest was known as such not for her relation with the Wyrm, which surely branded her Princess should she wish to announce it so, but rather for her mothers. All three of them. Hornet wasn’t raised by Herrah, there wouldn’t have been time. Her title was given to her as Herrah made her last arrangements, ready to sleep forever. The White Lady, so willing to shed away thought to what would soon come to happen to the vessel she had taken part of creating, was eager to raise one befitting of Wyrm’s lineage. Not a child of hers. Not pale, as she was and as he was, but enough that she was willing to honour her beloved, given the monarch couldn’t think of anything before him, focused on raising the vessel as he was.

Hive Queen Vespa pronounced herself as well. Borderlander Princess, unifier of tribes and Kingdom holy, Vespa thought she too had a part to play in the upbringing of Herrah’s daughter. Quick, functional, agile and deadly, her name was chosen by the Hive Queen, as a promise to make her a Knight to rival all those that the Pale King had at his disposal. An agreement of the Queens of Hallownest was made, and thus Hornet came to grace the Kingdom. Naturally, they rarely saw her in the White Palace and they could count in a hand the times they had exchanged glances with her. Or rather, seen her eyes set on them. She spared them not a word, and they wondered not how much the weaverling knew of their fate. She was so young, then. Only a speck of white and red cloth, but born deadly.

When the City of Tears was sealed away, they no longer caught sight of her anymore. They assumed Herrah's daughter must be with her mother, safe and sound, and using the few remaining time they had left before the Dreamer took her part in the ritual. In a manner, that too was what the Hollow Knight was doing. Biding their time, before their role was called on, and then things would never truly be as they once were.

Now, they did not answer her, no. They preferred to take their time imagining what it was that she was weaving. A weaver's talent and skin, truly, but did she know the father they shared also was one to work plenty with his hands? He created mold and produced just the most clever of contraptions. Lifts without chains, lanterns of his own glow, pillars of not stone, nor ore, but both. Rich carvings embedded with light, seals of the most intricate patterns and diverse of uses, to rival silkpool spells. In that workshop of his, the Pale King had created all sorts of things, now lost to time. But it was also there where he displayed those hands, all pairs of them, and his head seemed to weigh less when he worked, and his glow seemed to burn with a little more intensity and determination. When done, he would sound soft too, for a moment. As if the world had been dulled by the sounds of his own craft, and he had to seek himself from whatever mindset he drove himself in, in order to create.

Higher Beings created. Be it dreams, sicknesses, melodies, lives, machinery, offspring, all kinds of things. The Pale King created light, but never blew life into anything, not in the manner Unn did in her dreams. No, he cast light, breathed reason into common bugs, and soul into unliving things. That was his creation and craft, that was his gift. They wondered what it was that Hornet was creating that had her attention so, until their movement had interrupted her focus. 

She took their silence as an answer, and not a very positive one. Her hands, from what they could see, wrapped the needle in silk and through fabric, before she put the item aside on the hammock she had been seated on. Like a proper Deepnest being, her feet made no sound on the floor if she did not want them to. "Forgive me. I… Things do not seem to often be well, do they? It is a foolish question."

Not foolish at all, they thought. Kind, perhaps, and the Daughter of Hallownest must have gone so long without seeing such a thing that now when she was faced with such, she must think it foolish indeed. But it was not. They had seen how it was not. Their siblings just had never met the world the Hollow Knight had been raised on, and surely it hadn't been a comfortable world, nor one where they received such graces themselves, but they witnessed so much of it, enough to become a hoarder of its beauties. They could retell judgement, and name most if not all laws and crimes in the former Kingdom. They knew all the songs in those halls by heart, all the battles the Knights took part of, all ceremonies and their purpose, the order of all events. Quiet beholder of brilliant life, they had seen kindness too. From their sire, from their lady, from the knights. 

Kindness was a strength. Kindness was the weapon of Isma, who mourned every son and daughter and offspring ever sent to battle and her tears could collapse caverns, render armour and shell useless. Kindness was the strength behind Dryya's nail arm and Hegemol's hammer grip. Kindness was the manner in which Kings regarded their subjects every time, regardless of how impolite, demanding and unreasonable they were being. Kindness was a trait of the best of that forgotten world. They were glad to see it live in her, even if only for a moment. "I have returned not too long ago from the City of Tears. It is not faring well either."

She was quiet as she walked towards the small oven of their home, and kneeling by it, she fetched flint from the table and bothered to light it up. It took a while, before the shellwood began burning a fragile, orange flame. She filled a shell with water, before carefully putting it against the flames. Boiling water for tea, they supposed. They had never seen her bringing game to their home, and could only assume she chose not to willingly. She had been raised by a Root, who did not eat, and then by a Hive Queen. What eating rituals she had were beyond their imagination, but one thing they had grasped was that she seemed to enjoy tea. So had most bugs in Hallownest, back when there were tea makers who wandered into Greenpath and cultivated in Unn's dream the herbs and flowers for all sorts of teas. Some were roasted, others smoked, others were had fresh. 

They had never tasted it, but they noticed the different smells. They wondered what Hornet's tea of choice was like. "You should see it with your own eyes, if it suits you. I will accompany you if you wish."

As if lured by the suggestion of going somewhere, their sibling moved their head up, first and foremost. A quick, small jolt of their shell, not unlike the Hollow Knight's own from only moments ago, and from that they turned their face to the sides, as if searching for something or someone, or as if they thought they had fallen asleep somewhere else. They wondered if their sibling had dreamt anything, and what it must mean to dream for them. They who technically now presided atop a Pantheon of Gods, placed in the powerful hive mind of an entire kin. Were they summoned in their sleep, like they had summoned the Hollow Knight once? Was there any challengers in that realm, trying to take their place just like they had taken hers? Many questions went unanswered, but they saw little use in making them. They doubted even the Ghost of Hallownest knew their answers. 

Hornet continued, giving their smaller sibling some seconds to meet her eyes and catch up on their senses. There was no sleepiness to plague a vessel, but to sleep was something simulated, often willed. It was a state to return from and unfurl, much like consciousness itself. They could always do with a few seconds to remind their hollow bodies to  _ live _ once more. "...As I was saying, the City of Tears is in disarray. Few people have gathered in the empty homes. The only vague resemblance of order comes from guards and sentries, who dare to leave the city walls to find food. They have just woken from a dream too long, and the while has not been enough to make them realise the world they are now in just yet.” 

She opened a small tin in her hands, pinching the powder and herb within and sprinkling it into a tall cup on the table. How her upbringing had happened once the Hollow Knight went into the Temple of the Black Egg was impossible to know, but surprised them not that she seemed set on guiding what was left of Hallownest into some sort of order. At least enough to prevent starvation or conflict. Her composition was of half weaver, half Wyrm, but in all parts, be them from lineage or from upbringing, she was made of royalty. Hopeful and unrelenting, they did not know what she had been doing all this time in Hallownest, but they doubted not it had something related to its preservation. The Child of Three Queens was set to it even now, to attempt to rescue and resurrect Hallownest even if it was gasping at its last breaths. 

It was what she did to them, they thought. She had escorted them to safety and were willing to provide them with some kind of life, regardless of how it must be nearing its end. The Princess Knight was, every passing day and at every wandering thought, becoming dearer to them. Their thoughts, as if haunted, returned to their shared father as they always did. They supposed the Wyrm would have liked to see how his daughter ended up like, even if she was not the pale child he had hoped for. The tales of Wyrms were always distant and terminal. Despite it never being confirmed by the monarch himself, it seemed as if the Pale King had been the last of them. That could have changed, perhaps, had Hallownest fulfilled its goal and promise - a holy nest - where he met one suitable to him, where he met her, pale and fair, and he wouldn’t see his kind end in himself anymore.

That promise unfulfilled weighted on his shoulders, but nonetheless he held on the frays, and fought for that Hallownest long past. A cost so great, but even if barren, he would save his Kingdom. The Hollow Knight had hoped to grant him that, at least that. If only that. “The inhabitants do not listen to me, although I have tried. The guards listen to rank only, and currently the Watcher’s Spire and the Soul Sanctum are barren. No leadership, be it from watchers or from the esoterics. And I am as good to them as any stranger.”

Their sibling, now awake, seemed content for once on not moving. They listened to Hornet, and watched with unveiled interest the manner in which she poured hot water into the cup, making a thin trail of steam rise from it, and along with it, the perfume of the beverage. It was not only the Hollow Knight who was interested in the smell, they supposed.  _ "That 's on me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have…” _

No surprise at all that to undo the seals of their sarcophagus, their sibling went to every Dreamer wherein they had guarded themselves to rest. As long as the City of Tears stood, Lurien’s guards would watch their Mayor’s slumber, keeping him from any harm. Monomon created her own guard and security, made in vials with specks of her own mysterious, outlandish being. Charged with lumafly, her creations weren’t particularly intelligent, but she surely must have turned her archives into something impenetrable in its own right, employing those creations of hers in some manner. And Herrah… Well, the infection shouldn’t alter the nature of Deepnest too much, they thought. It couldn’t get much wilder, nor anymore deadly, dark and maze-like.

Their sibling must have carved their way to each Dreamer with nail and will, and in their place, they couldn’t say they would have held back their own either. The infected wouldn’t think twice before hurting whatever opposed them, and their mission was clear before them. Perhaps their sibling had never thought that those people could wake from that infection. No one would have entertained that thought too much. Either way, there was no reason for them to blame themselves for the vacancy of Hallownest. They voiced such a thought, just slightly placing their hand on the back of the smaller vessel, above the monarch wings constructed to mimic their father’s own.  _ “Do not dally in such thoughts. If not them, you, and they could not have done what you did for Hallownest.” _

Their sibling turned their head a little, the hollow of their eyes facing the Hollow Knight’s own. The tall vessel hadn’t bothered to move much from the position they had slept in, and more than ever they should prevent any sleep, regardless of how small it was. There was no room, and their head wasn’t too far from the foot of the table. Their sibling was right against the non-eaten half of their chest. Any movement would be monumental, and put both of their siblings on the move so to get out of their way or to prevent items and beverages from being thrown to the floor. They despised the thought of being such a bother.  _ “I know. I just do not want to start making excuses for the things I do. Not all of that was necessary, I think. I could have been sneakier.” _

The Ghost of Hallownest’s words were like a nail, pressed along the cracks of their shell and drilled to bother the shade within. Stung and made the Hollow Knight feel like they could bury themselves on the ground should it have been possible - those were not simple words, thrown losely. They most certainly were thinking of a specific being when they chose them, a being that believed that the end of his actions could justify the manner in which he did things. Their sibling despised that half of them. That had been once a thought, but there was now a degree of certainty to such a statement. Despised unjustly everything that the Hollow Knight loved the most. 

It stung. And they would rather not dignify that with an answer, for it already conflicted a lot within the larger vessel; they adored their siblings and they did not want to dispose themselves with the Ghost of Hallownest. They had every right to resent the father they did not meet. But all the same, they loved that same father enough that they wished they would defend them, even if only in words and thought. They couldn’t. A part of them thought it wasn’t worth it, and it pained them to think that somewhere in them existed some ache, enough resentment to believe it wasn’t worth it right now to defend their father. When was it that it became so? When was it in their caged slumber that they began brewing anything towards their father that wasn’t what they already possessed when they walked in there? Was it her thoughts brewing such poison? 

Such things went unanswered, and they once more focused on their siblings. The quiet Ghost of Hallownest, and the Daughter of that same Kingdom who stirred her tea slowly, watching them. “...You two can communicate with each other in some manner. I should have realised that before. I mourn that I cannot - the mapmaker’s wife has set quite the price on papers.”

With her cup between her hands, she took a seat on the floor once more, as she had done the last time the three of them had all been under this ceiling. It was a comfortable reunion, even if the subject discussed wasn’t nearly as much. The Hollow Knight lacked their father, but the Wyrm did live on somehow in their siblings, in their cunning, their intelligence, their hearts. Three was a special number, a recurring pattern in the Wyrm’s bright seals. It did bring some balance to the room, regardless of how they were arranged. It gave the Hollow Knight some peace of mind to bask on - whatever the world chose to plague them with, they were in the best company they could wish to keep. It was something to mourn that from the three, they were the only one that could do nothing for themselves. Not speak, nor walk in the roads they walked, nor dream, nor fight, nor fetch. Nothing.

“I speak of Hallownest’s situation but I know not if it is something that interests either of you. Both of your duties are fulfilled, even yours, little Ghost, and any further aid cannot be asked or hoped for.” Hornet explained, her voice back to the severity she always wore, but now also lathed with a degree of resignation. Surprised them still that somehow she cared, for them and for Hallownest individually and independently, enough that she would not ask for their help. The little but brave Child of Three Queens seemed to think she too could do the work of three Queens. And when matters were Kingdoms, not even three sufficed. The Pale King had Five Knights and one Hollow, and even then it rarely seemed enough to keep everything in control. “But all that was done cannot be only to see Hallownest perish under its own weight. I will do everything I can to give it a fighting chance.”

The Hollow Knight had no doubt that if there was any chance that Hallownest would get back on its feet, Hornet would find it. But there was a realm of many impossibilities involved, and they did not think she could find a solution to them all. What light could she bring to ensure the denizens wanted to stick to order? The mindset of these bugs was crafted by the royalty that created this Kingdom in the first place. They couldn’t stick to order like the mantids, through a hierarchy of strength. They weren’t of shared mind, like the Hive, and they were not as independent and joined by weaving like those of Deepnest. The bugs of Hallownest’s core united through law and trade, united under the order of light and time, of scheduled music and the studies of the Teacher. Architecture, storytelling, music, nail art. That Hallownest would never return, and they doubted she could arrange them into any other structure, especially one so entirely different from the one they once knew. She was a Borderlander Queen, and would be heard in any peripheric region, perhaps even by the Mosskin. Anywhere but in the City of Tears.

That was the talent of a pale being, who shone bright enough and seemed to inspire enough awe that it struck most bugs where they stood. Only light could budge beings empowered and so stubborn by the minds they were given. But the last Wyrm was dead, and with him, his glow, and the other lights of this world were either not interested in any kind of rule, wandering eternally as he was, or had been swallowed by the Abyss. They wouldn’t tell Hornet it was hopeless, but alas, they did think so in their heart. Their sibling however, must think differently. For while the Hollow Knight was rather content on leaving their thoughts in their own head, the smaller vessel had promptly gathered their paper and quill and began scribbling an answer, that they quickly handed to their sister. She read the paper just as fast as they handed it to her. “...Thank you, little Ghost. Brings me comfort to know you will help once you are done with your own errands. Does the same stand for our sibling?”

The Hollow Knight felt like there was something else happening here that was quickly passing through their grasp. That was certainly on them, a consequence of their wandering thoughts. Whatever their sibling wrote to Hornet, they hadn’t bothered to tell them what answer they had given her. And to her question involving them, the Ghost of Hallownest quickly nodded their head, not wasting a beat as if they did, the Hollow Knight would disprove it. They weren’t sure what it was that their sibling had just confirmed in their name, but it seemed already rather late to go back. Curse them. “Wondrous. I will talk to this town’s Elder, and ask him to summon the citizens for a reunion. I think it would be best if they were at the very least aware of the Kingdom below and its situation. I have a feeling the mapmaker’s wife might be willing to pick her nail if the opportunity presents itself, and that merchant goes anywhere where it might be Geo.”

_ “What did you tell her?”  _ They asked, in one hand, grateful that whatever they sibling wrote seemed to rekindle some hope in their sister, but also concerned for how exactly it involved them. They couldn’t predict any other kind of response that would have produced such a reaction that wasn’t a full compromise to join her in the management efforts she seemed to be making. It was by far something they did not want to partake. It wasn’t a desire as much as it was incapacity; they were in no position to offer aid, in fact they might be a hindrance to their siblings as they were.

_ "That I would help her, in whatever way I can. Is it not the right thing to do? She is right, after everything we did, I can't just sit back and let the place fall apart. For that, I should have stayed on the Abyss. But first, we are going somewhere."  _ They explained, not phased by the fact they had spoken for the Hollow Knight when they had confirmed that it was also something they were willing to do. They weren't upset with their sibling, couldn't truly be. If they had been asked by either the Daughter or Ghost of Hallownest, they most certainly would have agreed to such a thing, even if from that moment onward they would only but weigh themselves down even more with another promise unfulfilled. Wherever their siblings were was where they wished to be, that much they knew. They would accompany them, but they did not think they could help. 

Hornet drank her tea rather quickly, they noticed. She only but waited for the temperature to be doable, before she downed the beverage quickly and in mouthfuls. They wondered if she could even taste the thing at this point, or if the stinging of the temperature was all that she could truly savour from it. Once done, she stood with her cup, putting it on the table as she went to her hammock to fetch her needle. Whatever project she had been weaving before seemed to have to wait for another opportunity. It remained on the hammock, as she retrieved only gossamer and needle. "I suppose you too will be parting soon. Be safe, siblings. May we either meet here or somewhere down Hallownest."

_ "I have to show you another place."  _ Their sibling stated, as they took Hornet's movement as the sign that they too should get moving. They wondered what other place it was that their sibling had to show them and like the hot spring, simply couldn't state before they left the home. Perhaps there was some wisdom to it, for the Hollow Knight might as well just refuse, for they would have refused to visit the hot spring had they known. Their sibling shoved paper and quill back in their bag, and quickly took one of the charms in their inner pocket, replacing it for another. Those small items were powerful things, made of the death of great beings, their birth, or through plenty of skill of their makers. What sort of collection their sibling kept and how far exactly did they go to get such things was beyond them.  _ "It is a little farther away than the hot spring, but I think it will be worth it."  _

Perhaps it would be. Perhaps not. Either way, as Hornet left their little home and the Ghost of Hallownest followed, dragging behind themselves the Hollow Knight's nail, and the large vessel took a moment to conform themselves. They felt a little like the Elderbug must feel; surely it was lovely that the young and healthy played music, travelled and lived busy lives but all they truly felt was the earning to do was to lay back and contemplate on whatever leftover of a life that they had. They would be content with simply welcoming their end in peace, perhaps simply sleeping once and never waking again. Was it too much to ask, or did they have to depart in some random, shameful manner, such as slipping on a fossilised carcass and hitting their shell on the floor and simply fading from existence right there, not enough void in them anymore to even produce a shade. Just black ink, seeping through the cracks of the flooring and back to where all Void pooled. Was that how they had to die?

It was not for them to choose, they supposed. And in part, they did not resent the world for not giving them a choice. They never had any, and they didn't think they had it in them to make the best of choices. For one, they never made them before, and secondly, if they made any, it would have been thinking of their own destruction or of the parted King. Either self-destructive, or terribly sacrificial, they couldn't trust themselves to be wiser than their siblings. The fact they were still willing to stand and walk to the Troupe Master's tent and ask him for that dance seemed to signal exactly that lack of insight. 

They crawled rather pitifully out of their little home. One movement at a time, careful with the furniture within. They truly took their time to emerge from the oval-roofed house, and outside, their siblings awaited for them with no display of hurry. Hornet with her red coat fluttering slightly with the passing wind, and the Ghost of Hallownest supporting the great nail with the space between their horns. They looked bright in comparison to the gray, dirty little town around them. Unlike their surroundings, their shells reflected the light of the lumafly lamps on their lamp posts as if signaling two ghosts in the fading town. Their own shell did no such thing anymore, grayed with time. 

They took their great nail and supported it on the floor with their single arm. With its aid, they rose to their feet slowly. Their cloak fell around them stiffly, a bit disorderly, much like its wearer. Seeing them stand seemed to be all that Hornet was waiting for before she spoke up. "See you two soon." 

She headed for that home on the edge of the town, one of the nearest to the King's Pass, neighbour to the settled Troupe. The music was still coming from it, and they wondered how many musicians must be in those tents. The melody was familiar, but not the same as the evening before. Not any louder, however, so they doubted the Troupe was practicing their performance, whatever it was. They wondered if Grimm would allow them to watch it, one evening. The Troupe Master still was with his son, and did tell the Ghost of Hallownest to return at a later date if they wished to travel with the child in tow. It was surprising for them that their sibling was respecting that request and simply not heading there now, before they parted. Part of them wished their sibling would disregard it. Any excuse to detach themselves from this world and just bask in the scarlet flame and his exquisite existence would do. 

Their sibling did no such thing, however, and led them in the opposite direction that Hornet went. To the cemetery and the well on its frontier, towards the decaying Kingdom below. 

* * *

Their sibling hadn't lied when they said that their next destination was rather further away than the hot spring. It wasn't merely slightly away, no, it was leagues and leagues further, as distant as the City of Tears, perhaps farther. Surely for them the distance could have been crossed within an hour, perhaps less. They did possess that ability after all, the one that harnessed energy from within, like the crystals. It was not a spell of soul, so it shouldn't tire so much to use. 

But with the Hollow Knight with them, the journey had been long. Very, very long. The platforms that once hauled goods up and down the crossroads of Hallownest were stuck in place for ages now. They had to climb. The only advantage to their height so far seemed to be that they didn't need to jump anything. They didn't think they had the strength for such should they need to. But the cost of such skill was great. They squeezed through passages and crevices, and every time their horns scraped anything, they felt the shell moving directly where it was cracked. As if a bump or pull was slightly stronger at where it caught, and it would be enough to break their shell apart, and they knew not the consequences should it indeed break. Thus, it was best to avoid such. They walked, and walked, and walked. But the path did answer their supposition on Monomon's defense method.

She had disregarded the thought of employing guards for her safety, stating that age came to them all and it was unwise to rely on beings that thought for too long. Monomon was odd, a creature from a damp, unknown Kingdom with foreign life forms, herself included. She was nothing that they ever had seen before, and apparently, nothing that either the Wyrm or the White Lady had ever seen before. A beast of sorts, that breathed not and lived longer in mud, water or acid. Not a slug, either. She simply  _ was _ ; intelligent and inventive, hovering and kind and aloof of many of the woes of common bug. Lost to research, machinery, and the architecture of the living in the same manner Lurien dedicated himself to once, building the spotless City of Tears, then presiding over it.

It was with her aid that the Pale King had constructed the first Kingsmold that guarded his halls. Difficult builds, and with it sorted out, they took a step further. The Teacher and him came up with the theory that would lead to their existence, an experiment to dread, but that in theory should work. Monomon had never failed the Kingdom and King, they wondered how it was that she had failed with the concept of a Hollow Knight. How did they fail? That accursed void, of course - that crucial variable that hid more than one expected and could achieve great things, but in them, it simply was not enough, regardless of what they did and how much they hoped it was. That curse without gift, the Pale King traded his children for a Hollow Knight that never ascended from the void.

And Monomon, in her slumber, mustn't even know what had come to happen. She slept through the entire outcome in a foggy canyon where her biological creations hovered in all their unstable, charged beauty. A deadly maze most certainly, that seemed to have remained unperturbed for all this time until the Ghost of Hallownest came to break the seal fueled by her mind. Regardless of it all, they wished Monomon had better. All Dreamers, with no exception, were exceptional bugs, particularly skilled in that realm of dreams. They had far more to provide to Hallownest alive than dead. But at the time, they were the only ones that could harbour those seals, and they took up their task diligently. The only thing they hoped out of this sacrifice was that Hallownest would stand eternal as the beautiful and fruitful Kingdom it once was. 

They had let them down too. And somehow, outlived them all. Undeserving, twice over, of the siblings they had and the after life they were rejoicing, walking in the Queen's Gardens with the Ghost of Hallownest and recalling every time they had been here, with their mother, father, or both. At the time, they were as small as their sibling currently was, and their mother still found some joy in having them near, even if that joy was too tainted by grief. Their ascension had been so thoroughly celebrated by her - the Pale King treated it as if it was a battle won, the ceasing of attempt, but she… For a while, she saw them and in their diminutiveness the child she hoped for.

In a small room at the White Palace, they heard music for the first time. A small lullaby, played in a music box that played eternally, like a clock that never stopped ticking. She watched them, taught them words they could not speak and told them of the beauty of this Kingdom, the power of their lineage, the tales and folktales that the bugs brought to Hallownest. She would tuck them in and watch them over until they fell asleep, something they always took a while to do. They could fall asleep quickly, if they so wished, but they liked her near, her brilliant eyes on them, the canopy of her roots glowing as she watched them right back. They could take as long as they needed, she insisted. So they only fell asleep when they decided they must have held her there for long enough.

They knew love. They weren't unfamiliar to it, it had been something they had always known. Love for their mother, their father, for Hallownest, and now for their siblings. But love had always been something tainted for them, they supposed. She watched them train, and mourned that they didn't tire, bleed, or exhaust. The small things that differed them from a bug, even one of higher birth. Of all the things she could teach them, they wouldn't say a word, and from all the songs she played to them, they would never join her in her singing. They ate and had no favourites, and the sight too was something she cringed at. She saw them molt, the carapace of Void melting back into their holy shell and expanding, ripping it from the inside to make something bigger. Still they stood unnaturally, balanced on a thin body, a structure that should not function to any organic, living being. The King's words got to her, eventually. Her love soon was more taint than purity. There was no use nurturing something that wasn't alive. They were not what she saw in them. And slowly, walking with her became rare. Slowly, she moved from the Palace entirely, and the Pale King brought them with him when visiting the Gardens less and less often. 

Eventually, they saw her for what would be the last time. Her gentle glow, not blinding like the Pale King's but unwaveringly potent all the same, was dulled within the bindings she wore. Her brilliant eyes shone sadly, as if always harboured tears, but that last time she had never looked so mournful. Or perhaps it had been them who read such things in her upset and concerned demeanor. They would never know. 

But she would be happy, they supposed, if she knew how her Gardens lived as long as Hallownest. The buildings still stood, and while the greenery and thorns had taken over some places, most of it was well preserved. What they did not expect to see was mantids at some parts. What sort of war must have taken place that now the Gardens had Mantid settlers was beyond their imagination. But nonetheless, they were here. Dangerous to strangers, hissing upon sight, but their sibling seemed to know the place like their nail, all its secret nooks and the caverns created by roots, not particularly an easy place to traverse but a safe one with the company the Hollow Knight kept.

_ “Why are the mantids here? They are not a tribe to expand territory, and these Gardens are twice contested, I see no reason for them to make it thrice so.” _ They asked their sibling at one of the many stops on their path. They were growing tired from the journey, as if they had been thrown into a battle too harsh for their fragile shell. From Dirtmouth to the Queen’s Gardens was no short distance, and they had crossed it without voicing a single complaint, a single request for their sibling to slow down their rapid, weightless step.

Perhaps they should have, they thought. For this was not meant to be anything more than a brief break while the Ghost of Hallownest sorted out the beasts they had hunted, and yet the Hollow Knight could feel the weight of their shell, their carapace bending further forward when they took a seat by the lumafly lamp their sibling brought along themselves in every journey. It was a delicate but rather lonesome thing; the lamp was a beautiful construct, but they supposed that after a while in this haunted Hallownest, there weren't many bugs willing to trap new and charged lumaflies. To ration them through many glasses was a wise decision, especially without the lanterns the King himself created and gifted to the homes of his subjects and his beautiful capitol.

The King’s lanterns weren't unlike the lights the scholars of the Soul Sanctum created, light born of soul and born of spell, then bottled; but the scholar’s lamps were not something they created for its light but rather to replenish themselves when they trained their spells. It was costly to one or many scholars to tear at that energy within themselves and trap it within a sheer vessel. There was only so much soul the common bug could provide and spare, before they either deformed, died or went mad. Nonetheless they dedicated themselves to their craft, its study and art, for it must have felt the closest one could get to wielding what the Pale King wielded, and achieving the things most extraordinary beings achieved. A transcendence of sorts, that would challenge death and their own earthly limitations. 

The Pale King however exhaled that power as he breathed, as he glowed. To make those lanterns wasn't as much of an effort, as it was a spare thought; to give it was an invaluable gift to the receiver, a little bit of his glow, bodiless but trapped in glass, to light up the homes of the citizens of his city when night settled in Hallownest and his glow was diminished, to permit the bugs to rest untethered by it. They wondered now if any of those lamps prevailed still in the homes of the City of Tears. They doubted it - if so, they would have been scavenged, and their sibling wouldn’t be walking now with such a faint thing to provide light for their path ahead. The single bug within kept glowing constantly, but seemed to hardly bother to move at this point. Conformed to its enclosure, perhaps? They knew how that was like. 

_ “From what I gathered, one of the Mantis Lords took in the infection to become stronger. He was banished, along with those who followed him. They fled to the Queen’s Gardens.”  _ Their sibling had taken a seat across the Hollow Knight and with their game assorted near them. The Ghost of Hallownest didn’t seem to be sure just yet whether or not they preferred the texture of the dumbest Mosskin beasts that crossed their way over the mindless vengeflies of the Crossroads, but the lack of a decision didn't keep them from complaining as they saw fit. To think, the Hollow Knight had hoped that they had made it clear to their sibling that they did not need to do this, to molt was a choice, and they were spotless as they were, finding an advantage with their diminutive size. But alas, the idea had been instilled in the most stubborn and thick shell of theirs, and here they were. A ritual of complaints as they severed the small creature, found a piece small enough to fit in their own gaping and disturbing maw, before offering the larger, harder and most unpleasant bits for the Hollow Knight. 

They had promised to accompany them on this journey for it was unthinkable for them to let their sibling go through it alone. To feel their shell molting was irritating, and to stay still was a must. They would oversee that, as their own had been overseen and their respite was guarded, until they returned from burrow both taller and brighter. However, the Ghost of Hallownest interpreted their words as a promise to endure the discomfort of eating along them, and not only that, they seemed to have read an offering to eat all the parts they liked the least. They would have corrected them, if only that didn't feel like this might be the only thing they could offer their sibling at this point. Not a nail at their side, to face the world as the Knight they once were. Not comforting words, for they revelled in their silence most of the time, nor good advice, for they weren't good at making decisions for themselves, even less for another. This was all they could do for them, so they did it. They opened their jaw diligently and let the smaller vessel dispose of the carcass in the only manner they seemed to think it would prevent a carcass from being wasted.

A glorified carrion eater. That was what they became. The lowest of the low. To think, they thought they couldn't go any lower after the way they so miserably crawled into Dirtmouth for the first time, but they were deeply wrong. There was nothing sacred in the afterlife, truly, not even a former Knight’s pride. With that thought, they let themselves lay down as their body so desperately seemed to need it. Their sibling made it known they still had some ways to go before they arrived at the intended destination, and the Hollow Knight wanted to make the most out of this small break. The hollow of their eyes watched the quiet, sometimes slightly moving lumafly.  _ "...How much more do I have to eat?" _

It was not the first time they had heard this question in the last hour, nor would it be the last, but they gathered the dignity still living in themselves and crafted another quiet, mindful, and ever polite answer.  _ "Only until you start to feel the shell molting." _

They had explained with more details, before. To molt was an uncomfortable process, but their range of feeling wasn't very diverse to begin with. Plenty of the experiences of this living world were simply that, bothersome like an itch, uncomfortable to a degree, a few rare things actually being comfortable or even nice to begin with. The hot spring apparently was nice, and so was to feel a gentle touch to their shell, although that might be from the meaning of those entirely, and little from an actual perception. Their carapace, hard or soft, could feel the things they held, the wind and texture of things below their feet. Could feel the wrongness of a piercing blow, and could miss a limb it once possessed. The later was a recent discovery. 

To molt was to bring an itch below the surface of their shell. Something they wanted to scratch and rip off the first time they felt it, as the surface of it became brittle, somewhat detached from a layer below. It was the signal for them to find somewhere safe and let the process take its toll; their carapace would melt into their shell then reform slowly as the shell grew and discarded that brittle surface, oftentimes much greater than it was before. When embodied again, it was still a time to be reclusive, as their shell could malform in this still softer stage, and despite all the disliking one might have towards being still, it was crucial to do so. They wondered how their sibling would fare on that part, but considering their size, their process couldn't take much more than a couple days.

A couple days where they would be able to put their own carcass of a body on the side and forget about living, for a moment. They weren't longing for that quietness nor to be alone once more, but to move through Hallownest was indeed a tiresome burden. Shameful through every step and a constant reminder of their own uselessness, they wished they could take a break from those thoughts too, and simply bask in other favoured burdens. Such was the realm of their thoughts, void of light and much hope, they simply hopped from one misery to another, as if they lived in a theatre of sorrows and tragedies and tasked themselves on writing their reviews. Alas, the words they had given the Troupe Master were true. They liked a classic tragedy, didn't they? Only liking could explain how attached they had become to their bestowed role and the misery it created. It was all they knew, but it must be liking making them come back to it, time and time again.

They wished they could be more like their siblings. More capable to live, see goals ahead of them, and brew wishes and longings in their heart. The Hollow Knight was just surviving, one hour at a time, one mournful thought per minute. It was tiring, so when their sight slipped their mind, they didn't haul it back and simply let it lead them to a brief unconsciousness. They weren't in a hurry to get to whatever place their sibling wanted to take them.

Deeper inside the Queen's Gardens, there was a burrow. A cocoon of sorts, concealed away from sight, past maze-like tunnels and caverns of delicate plant life and hostile thorns. The pavement, so beautifully carved by the builders of Hallownest, seemed to have been almost entirely swallowed by Unn's dream, that once out of the Dream and into the living world, it lived and breathed like any other being and grew as it was natural for all beings to grow, seeking out water and dampness from waterfalls and the very air itself. Exquisite flowers grew in no specific order or manner, having outgrow their vases and fields, with roots that now broke through stone and made the floor crunchy as they walked. Further into the Gardens, the spaces and pathways became tighter, swallowed further and further by Unn's dream until there was nearly no hint of stone or the buildings that the Hallownest of old once prided themselves so much of.

Other elements were added to the scenery however, elements far more difficult to predict. Like it had swallowed stone, the green life too seemed to have started taking over corpses as well. Cloaks blended with the brown of twigs and branches. Bladed limbs stood tall and sharp, easy to mistake for thorns. The flooring at parts was composed by the corpse of mantids, most of them further inwards the Garden's deepest recesses, and then piled before a large clearing at the Garden's own heart. They knew this place, even if they had never visited it before. 

Their mother, in all her fair and pale beauty, had always loved Unn's dream in a manner that couldn't be rivalled. She was motherly, by nature, like many bugs in Hallownest whose biological natures were to reproduce, catter and raise, and it was something she welcomed readily. She had loved it, the balance of life that Unn's dream could provide, sentience given to a few and yet all were rooted to the same thing, same sort of existence, bugs coated in moss like moths had hairs. All living in a symbiosis that required no intervention nor tampering, but she still liked to shelter the fragile few when she could. In this clearing, she often nurtured the most frail mosskin she found in those caverns. Here she secluded herself, tended to the plants, and played an elegant instrument of a hundred strings that could be heard all the way down these pathways, percussed by the beating waterfalls and the rustle of leaves.

In this clearing, mantid corpses towered at its entrance, and at its centre, some kind of cocoon of odd shape and material stood where she once stood. They were looking at a cemetery, they noticed. The aftermath of a battle so grim that there had been no survivors to gather the bodies, no tombstones etched to honour their troops. From the cocoon, roots stretched out from it's odd stone, seeping into the ground below or reaching for the vines at the ceiling, immobile and eerie in their faint glow, almost unnoticeable at this point. 

Their mother's glow had always been something discrete and gentle, a comforting hum of light in the dark that was never meant to scorch and blind, not like their father's was. Both Pale beings, but with different approaches to their own glow. She created life, in a way he never could. The Lady fair and pale lacked the intensity of his shine but had the unique ability to replicate it, not encased like the King's soul but to bestow it upon others. Her kin, if she so chose to have them. And oh, how much she wanted to make use of such capability. A biological purpose that she longed to fulfill, as much as a Wyrm's was to settle down Kingdoms and metamorphose upon demand, hers was to see herself and him perpetuated. Her nurturing glow soothed pains and despair, her tears once healed, she had been the spot of light that their father had found in the once wild Hallownest, and for her, he settled. Their union gave the Kingdom its name - a holy nest where they would grasp on life and see it grow.

Purposes and hopes veiled to most bugs, but so enchantingly honest when they had first become aware of it. A place built on hope, on love. Two Pale beings united, who perhaps could have simply chosen to be together and forsake everything in their path yet they didn’t, instead they chose to share that which they were blessed with. A clear mind, free from the chains of instinct. They chose to share their prosperity, give room to the bugs of Hallownest to bask in that same light, enlightenment and joy that they found on one another. Oh, if only they had known the outcome of such generosity, if only the Pale King had foretold so, perhaps they would have stopped themselves, been a little more selfish, and it would have spared themselves the fate that befell them. But he hadn't, and now they looked at the place where their mother had died, possibly of grief or distaste, whichever poisoned the Root the most.

Against the entrance of the cocoon, lay slumped the familiar body of one of the Great Five Knights of Hallownest. Dryya. Known for her bravery and wisdom, accompanied by a love without measure for the monarchs and Hallownest. Where she lacked much of a word to share, whenever she did speak, it had always been to bring light to matters, speak reason when there was none. 

Dryya, beautiful and donned in white, with a carapace that seemed like the opening petals of a rare flower. The delicate sight betrayed her speed and viciousness. Gatekeeper in life and now in death, forever on the doorway to the White Lady's last respite. The Hollow Knight did not know how to feel. They were never close, for how could they have been? They were a vessel, and the Knights were… Eternally caught in everything that meant to be alive, they who ate and collected victories worthy of singing about, they who met the best and the worst of Hallownest, and courted death at every corner, glory everlasting. The Hollow Knight was none of those things, did none of these. They weren't even considered a being, even less a proper knight, the debate on the term only dying after the Pale King's request. 

They could have never been close. But nonetheless did it bring them an ache, to see the brave and fierce Dryya like this, no tomb, no headstone. No honours given to one of her might, no statues to be raised for whatever battle she fought here. No musicians to compose a ballad of her final ordeal. She was discarded, and they knew not if she had died successful in her mission, or if she had failed. Knowing her, she would have only cared for honours in case she succeeded in her goal at the end. Failure warranted no songs.  _ "Farewell, brave Dryya. If only this was the Hallownest we knew, you would be given the proper honours." _

They had never seen a Knight die, nor had heard of it. But for much less, did the Knights reunite to mourn one dear. When the Hollow Knight was led to the Temple of the Black Egg, they had been there at the White Palace, to bid the departing convoy their own honours. They hadn't thought then it was for them, and for their fate, but rather the whole ordeal that had finally become clear. How much it cost, now they all knew it, felt it in the air. All to build this haunted being, grown from the stillborn carcass of the King's offspring, and with them some of the three most influential people of Hallownest. Costs so high, and they would mourn it. For them, it seemed that nobody felt life as thoroughly as the Knights did. They loved unconditionally, grieved to starve, cried to corrode, fought to kill or die. They would know how to put Dryya's spirit to rest, in a manner their fellow Knight would have agreed to be suitable.

They were not confident they were enough of a Knight to claim that ability. But for Dryya, they envisioned a basin in a garden, for the mosskin to assemble and drink the gathered water, surrounded by Ze'mer's flowers, a friend's parting gift. Dryya would have enjoyed songs and thrilling plays, of victory and of conquest, to mourn her like a won war. And think dearly of her, her words and her advices, should they ever think of her again. That was how they thought Dryya would have liked it to be, but there wasn't a Hallownest to permit such things anymore, no sculptors to carve her basin, no musicians to play her triumph There was not even the Knights to improvise such an event. Her body would stay where it remained.  _ "You knew the Knights?" _

The Hollow Knight turned their head to their sibling after a moment. It was a simple question, but it had no simple answer. Oh, to think even these brave warriors had fallen mostly in forgetfulness, enough that all that was known of them now was that they were five, it was a disheartening thought.  _ "They trained me with the nail." _

A shallow response to the magnanimous contribution they had done to what they became. More present than any other being, save for their father, it was from watching them that they knew of Hallownest. The tale of its sorrows, the struggles to safeguard the pieces of Greenpath for the White Lady's garden. Through them they heard of the trades, the rain in the capital, and the reception of things they knew their father built, but wasn't there to see how his gifts were welcomed. Through them they learned of Pale Courts and its required behaviours. Through them they learnt of songs, dances, and the mirth one could find in fulfilling their duties. They had their own dues to pay to Hallownest, and if they were to choose a manner - not that they had ever been asked to choose a manner - they wished to do so like them. In honour and battle, with grace and regal lethality, and so gloriously alive. 

They carried such aspiration to their heart even now, but they were no proper Knight beyond title, and they wouldn't ever be. Their attention was led away from the body in a moment, as their sibling walked past them and the deceased Great Knight's shell and into the entrance of the cocoon. Truly, the entire thing seemed much smaller than it must truly be, and given how it was ingrained on the foliage-coated ground, they suspected it went some leagues underground. The White Lady must have been truly heartbroken to order such a thing to be constructed. It was a dark thing, Void-coated perhaps, and even the roots that stretched out of it seemed to have been weakened in some form. Faint of light and painfully still, they wondered if she had truly envisioned such a gloomy tomb for herself, so starkly unlike the scenery she once enjoyed so much.

Perhaps it hadn’t even been her intention. Perhaps she had hoped to remain there only as long as it took her heart to heal from the burden of guilt and shame of their sacrifice. Perhaps she waited for his return, like the Hollow Knight had waited, to have the Pale King arrive with most wondrous news and liberate them both from their confinement. She would have needed no chains to keep herself there, waiting, for her love for him was endless and unwavering. They wondered if she had died from missing him so much, or perhaps did she resent the King for never coming, and the distaste ended her, finally. They would never know, they supposed.

Their sibling was quick to enter the cocoon, passing through its circular entrance and disappearing within. They had no doubt that they were meant to follow, but they weren’t certain they truly could. Leaving their great nail at the door, they tilted their shell and carefully began the meticulous crawl through the tight tunnel. They had done no small share of squirming and crawling in these gardens, but none felt quite as tight. The tip of their horns dragged against the walls more often than not, the position to spare it from such was a difficult one to maintain. Their legs were long and they had no easy time bringing their single hand forward, which permitted the movement in the first place. At some point, there was a turn downwards, which let them rearrange their limbs as they dropped down, then resumed the crawl towards the cocoon’s centre.

A brighter centre, they noticed as they approached, and their shell’s position didn’t let them make much sense of it until they were entirely out of the tight tunnels. Roots stretched into the ceiling, breaching blackened stone and weaving itself through the masonry of the floors. Faint, this was nothing like the glow the Root had in life, but in the darkness of the cocoon, even her dead body shone delicately, Pale being that challenged death and time. When they stood, they finally caught full sight of her and her resting place. The wrappings she bound herself with were as dark as the walls of this construct, and despite it breaking the fluidity and spaciousness Hallownest’s dear lady was known for, she still looked radiant, features gentle, her eyes closed and head held up by the canopy ingrained in stone. The monument to her fall was herself, beautiful as ever, still in time.

_ “She lives still.” _ Their sibling stated, from their place before her, their words sounding so impossible and otherworldly to the Hollow Knight that they did not register it for a moment, not even as they moved to put a hand on one of her roots and pat it carefully. Only then did it sink into them, for she opened her eyes and looked down upon them both.

They didn’t think there was anything that could look as beautiful for them as she did at that moment. Hope, this dangerous thing to keep, hadn’t been so bold as to hope she would have outlasted their King and Hallownest and the infection. They had not hoped to see her again even if she lived, for all the world of pain their existence caused her, they preferred the thought that in the best of circumstances, she left Hallownest, shedding behind herself her woes and her thoughts of them. To never see her again, for her sake, was the best outcome. But for them, they didn’t think there was anything better that could have happened to their post-mortem. The relief they felt from seeing her eyes open was unthinkable. For a moment, they were frozen in place, caught between taking a seat before their legs failed them, or simply rush to nest against roots and bindings, as they had always done when summoned, back when they were at their smallest.

To think, the Hollow Knight was wrong. Hallownest had, somehow, survived beyond the few stragglers eating carrion and nearly-dead Knights. She had endured it all, too. And the Pale King was not here to see what he had achieved, how was it that somehow his plan worked itself out, but besides all loses it had been worth it for she had lived, the White Lady had lived, and where the Wyrm might fail to cast his light, she could recover, she could take the place now vacant and rebuild that Hallownest from the damage a slumber so long had caused. And with no Radiance threatening dawn on the Kingdom’s crown, there was plenty that could be done. They finally agreed with their sibling, there was  _ much _ to be done for Hallownest now, the future a blank canvas but that promised only improvements for they were looking at it from the bottom of the hole. She was the missing piece. With her at its centre, Hallownest could live on.

No more hopelessness. The Hallownest they knew wasn’t entirely dead and they might have spent an eternity in their own cocoon wishing they didn’t think, didn’t hope, and didn’t feel, but it was all they did now, in such a raging potency they felt like their carapace wasn’t capable anymore of withstanding so much strength in the ripples of that emotion. There was no hurry on ending this post-mortem anymore, no. They let go of that concern entirely. Die now or never, they were cradled in her light and her bliss and there was nothing that could compare itself to it.

“Within my roots, the weakening of the Vessel I plainly felt. What terror it has brought me, to not feel another take its place. You have not heeded my words, have not usurped its place. Now, it walks free. Both empty of that thing inside.” Their memory must be failing the Hollow Knight, they thought, for the White Lady used to feel warmer with her words, in that voice of hers that even now diminished, still sounded like an harp of a thousand strings, with her delicate and well-pronounced words, ringing every syllable with pointedness and comfortable certainty. But never had she sounded so gelid, acknowledging their struggle like an object, like the curving of pillars after the passage of time. She sounded like music, and her glow, however faint, blinded them for the moment. But her words felt like stingers, mistreating the musician’s fingers as they observed and let her talk.

Memory couldn’t be betraying them. She hadn’t been like this when she bid them farewell and loathed the cost of making them, loathed the progeny cursed and bound and let them know of such. It couldn’t have sounded like this, otherwise their memories of her wouldn’t be so fond. Or would they? “Now two haunt our Hallownest, aberrations in our offspring’s holy shell. It is known then, to all, what we have done and the cost paid. It is you that they see when me and my Wyrm are recalled? It was never meant to be so, my Wyrm assured me it wouldn’t be so.”

Her ramblings made little sense to them. Perhaps because they did not want to make sense of them and their implication. Seeing her, they hadn’t been expecting anything specific, besides fuel to hopes for a future, any fair future, and to see Hallownest rise up. For if she wished it so, and surely she must wish it so, there was hope for the fading Kingdom. It was all this place needed, the rest could be arranged. Was she even aware of what the Wyrm’s offspring had become? What was this being that she called ‘it’ and that she wished wasn’t walking in the abandoned carcass that became Hallownest because she and the Pale King fled the scene when it needed lights and leaders? This being had saved this Kingdom through the strength of their will alone. The Hollow Knight had failed, but the Ghost of Hallownest had not. Yet, would she even care for the difference between them? Would she even care if she knew?

Their thoughts were tangling, and their shell  _ hurt _ . The joints of their void-made carapace felt clunky as they stepped back, as if the will that held it all together and made it work was truly vanishing them. “Our sacred nest, for our pale children and all those who seek to bask in their beauty… This is what is left of it. Too great the cost, one it pains me to bear. Leave this shell, leave my children to rest, shame and pain of mine."

_ "Alright, that's enough. Come on Hollow."  _ They heard in their head but they didn't quite register, not with their head still turned up, basking on their mother's words and her musical voice, her beautiful gentle glow that had nurtured them with so much kindness, so much hope. She had seen them in a good manner, once. Even knowing of their fate and their nature, she had been kind to them once. It had changed, either progressively or suddenly overnight, and they mustn't have noticed it then. Had she been like this the last time they talked, or had she grown to despise them during the downfall of Hallownest? Did she even leave this burrow since then? Did she even know what fate befell King and Kingdom?

_ "Hollow. We are leaving now." _ Their sibling called with more insistence, their pull on their cloak becoming nearly a drag as the Hollow Knight permitted their frail legs to follow, one faint step at a time, towards where their sibling led them. The movements were clumsy now, disconnected from reality, happening to their body while their mind and soul seemed to be still there at their mother's light, being poured those words. 

She couldn't mean such a thing. They had never expected warmth from her again, once she recognised them as a vessel and a construct instead of a being. They could see her reason, to see the denaturation of her stillborn children in their existence was logical, as well her so named shame and pain. They understood her words, took them as true, for they were her truth. They were such deturpations, had always been. But nonetheless, her words didn't sink as if they were but a puppet animated by Void, a machine encased in a corpse. They took those words as a being, and they hurt. They did not expect love, nor praise for their efforts. They did not expect a thank you, nor a gentle touch to their cracked shell. 

But they disagreed, in some manner, deep within their heart in a way they could have never done before their imprisonment. Their time with the Radiance in their mind had tainted them with thought and emotion and hatred for they felt, they thought, and they disagreed. They no longer could think like they had thought once that they were hollow enough. They were a being, flawed and horrid. The White Lady might not see such, not accept such, not welcome a being that wasn't the offspring she hoped for but they were a being, better in their sibling and weak in the false Hollow Knight were, but they were a being. She had the right to reject them and feel shame for her actions. But she had no right to feel shame for what saved Hallownest when no other being could. A vessel had done it, not Hornet, nor King. A vessel who deserved at the very least to be called by their name. 

They crawled their way out of the tunnels, and didn't stand again. Past the narrow entrance, they felt the strength gone from their core, from the plates of their back and in the non existing tendons on their legs. Their fingers buried on the moss and foliage of the ground, and they struggled to make sense of what they felt, what they saw. Their sight was smudged in dots of black and white, their carapace trembling as it leaked from their joints. From the crevice of their eye sockets, the void leaked, black and coarser than water, but lighter than the infection could drip. It tainted the moss and greenery below, and they could not feel it when it dripped on the back of their hand. They felt nothing anymore, but the ache on their shell, a dormant type of pain, throbbing within as if the grip on it was loosening. 

They were falling apart, like focus and like will that held it all together. The shade was coming apart within, melting within their deceased body and they didn't think they were concerned with it, nor earning it to hold on much longer. There was nothing for them, for  _ it _ , in this living world. They hurt, in head and heart. 

_ "Hollow." _ They didn't feel it when their sibling touched the edges of their shell, moving it up so they could meet their eyes. They heard the intonation of their voice, however, deep in that miasma that composed both shades, deep within carapace and shell. Their sibling spoke in depths no other being could hear, none but them. Them who she couldn't consider her child or not even beings properly, but they knew they were. They were, for this was not how machinery was supposed to feel. Machines didn't feel, but they did. Every word a cut, every implication sunk in and bloomed in thorns.  _ "I am sorry, I didn't know she would… It doesn't matter, she doesn't matter."  _

But she did matter. Everything mattered for it was for her, and for him. The thoughts they held on when the Old Light twisted that soft voice in words much harsher, it was the memory of the gentle words and kind eyes that they held on. It was for her, and it was for him. For them that they held on, for them that they had done everything. Her words did matter, in a manner they couldn't explain for they expected not much better from her, they didn't expect praise or an embrace but perhaps they expected acknowledgement of success. Not for the Hollow Knight, for they had failed, they knew. But they had held on long enough for their sibling to come and see it through. They had done it, Vessels and Princess. They were more than what she said, and yet nothing was enough to prove that perhaps they were more than shades haunting shell, it was not enough to prove they were worthy of keeping after and despite their intended purposes.

They weren't worthy of living, and they weren't worthy of roaming the Kingdom they saved. That their sibling saved. Was that what had been holding them together? Had they deluded themselves into thinking that somehow surviving the Radiance was enough to grant them the right to walk this Kingdom they had done everything they could to protect? Was it truly all that held them together at this point, that now they could feel themselves melting within the carapace, melting out of their shell and desperate to sink and not exist? 

If not that, then it was their sibling who was holding them together, who with their diminutive hands were holding their shell from falling into the floor entirely along their slowly emptying carapace, kept their face turned to them, no insistence in their hold, no hurry, no desperation. They just sounded… Terribly disheartened, with a dash of anger. Only one of those emotions directed at the Hollow Knight, but both palpable in their words. The offense had been deflected by the newer shell as if it had never been struck, such words must mean little to one who defeated the Goddess atop on their own. But for the Hollow Knight, these words meant everything. She meant everything. They were not armoured by the confidence and self-assurance their sibling was.  _ "If you truly want to fade away, it is fine. But don't do so because of her words. She is blind but we don't need to be." _

The White Lady had always been blind. Blind to anything that wasn't the Pale King, that was. Without him, she hadn't moved a root to help Hallownest by the looks of it. If she would regret making them so much, why did she agree in the first place with his plan? Everything she did was heeding the Pale King's request, and they knew that, for it too had been what they had done. Like the Pale King, she would never see anything else in them but a vessel, and by her words they were requested to fade, to stop desecrating the grave that became Hallownest with their wandering. They knew that this input from her would not change. If this was what held them together, then they wouldn't hold on any longer, no.

But someone else did hold them together, even if for a moment. Their sibling held their shell upright even as the void stopped leaking from their body, even as they held their shell up from falling entirely. The hold didn't waiver, there should the Hollow Knight need it again. For the moment, they let it be all that held them together. Their sibling, in their diminutive size but immense courage, resilience to outlast Goddesses, certainty to stand still even if the world fell apart around them. They were made of the same thing, same recipe, even if loathed by makers both. This shadow of regret that they had been tossed at was theirs to share. They let their sibling's will hold them together, for the moment. It was no light, albeit they hoped it was. But there were no lights in Hallownest anymore, none for them to be blinded by. And to see was such a burden. 

But they didn’t fade, just yet. Not before their sibling at least. What a meagre, faint, small thing to hold on for now. Such a small detail, the concern of who was around to witness their dissolution. So foolish, yet was the only singular thought that kept them from coming undone entirely. Their sibling still held their shell and gaze, inexistent eyes looking at equally empty eye sockets. They weren’t sure what it was that their sibling saw, but they concluded after a moment.  _ "...I think it is time for you to visit our birthplace." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really said "Imma break this fella as much as I can before I help them", didn't I? Sorry if you like the White Lady, I just can't go past her demeanor towards little Ghost and insisting they usurp the Hollow Knight and take their place. 
> 
> This entire work I suppose is a lesson: Parents will always find new ways to hurt and disappoint you. Fin. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this and had a degree of fun reading this. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments, those mean a lot to me.


	5. Haunted Escapism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome back to the weekly wordy ordeal I serve y’all. Thanks to everyone who’s here to applaud! I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTICE: This chapter and the next were an entire single thing, but again, it got too long. So, I separated them. But that is not an even cut. This one is shorter than the usual, but the next is considerably longer. Don’t lose hope in me yet. I might -MIGHT- post chapter 6 in the first hour of Monday out of guilt, depending on how far I am into chapter 7. So do check by then, if you can/want. I love you.

An endless expanse of clouds stretched as far as eyesight could reach, an environment ever still like a painting. It only differed from such due to the manner in which the landscape so discreetly moved, with its clouds unfurling from within themselves, coiling inwards and within one another at times. Serene like abandoned waters, it could move and rock within its confines, but it wasn't going anywhere. The disposition of elements in this place could change, like a room that was never arranged in the same manner every time they visited, but they knew how it looked in all of its settings, had this place mapped in the depths of their mind. They knew this place, inside out, in whatever way it chose to present itself. 

This realm was their prison, but it wasn't theirs alone. This spot in which they now stood was of their own making, the polished stone gleaming like metal reflected the golden light that seemed to bounce from over the clouds on this endless space. The pillars that stood aligned towards the horizon, tall and dulled with time, were curved inwards like the horns of a deceased beast. That was their corpse, their shell, standing broken but piercing the clouds below, weathered by still time, but nonetheless offered defiance towards the unreachable ceiling of clouds above. It was their insertion, their intrusion, their taint in her home, that they also had made theirs. They knew this place, for it was where she was born, lived and dealt her blow upon the world, but it was also where she had been imprisoned. Unwilling cellmates, but both here nonetheless. And they had tired of her calling the cards every time, and they had tired of her pushing them to an endless fall through scorching light and convulsing sickness. 

This floor was where they held their ground. Before pillars of aged, corroded shell she could damage them but not destroy them. This was what awaited them after the prelude of life they had been raised in. This was what everything culminated in. The waking world still held their memories, their feelings, their thoughts. If they woke, they could still feel the ghosting touch of their father on their shell, and in the darkness of their sarcophagus, they were so incredibly alone in the empty darkness they preferred to push themselves to slumber once more. There, they would meet their ultimate fate, there they would be destroyed. There, they were bound, nailed, chained and abandoned. There, in the waking world, there was nothing for them but the weight of the seals and the passage of time they couldn't count nor measure, only feel the ache of every second that seemed to pass slower if they tried to count it. 

Here they were offered pain too. Suffering, struggle, hate. It was not a good place to be, in her home. But here, they could stretch their limbs and feel an ache out of the habit, a pleasantness derived simply from the small control over themselves that it provided. Here, they weren't hollow, but facing their inhabitant face to face. Here, they had a will to break, a mind to think, and most importantly, a voice to proclaim their thoughts. Here they were being destroyed eternally, an never-ending affair, and due to it never ending, they remained whole, even if broken. Here they were both.

It hadn't always been like this, no. Their imprisonment began silently. She was there, but they did not feel. It felt like the longest of times where they had just been there, alone, watching the emptiness and not thinking of it, not feeling it. Just an eternal loneliness, an eternal vacancy of purpose. At that time, there was nothing for her to fend from them, not an emotion for her to prod, not a thought for her to fester. They did not sleep. But they had never been alone before, in the dark. Even the Abyss was a crowded place, haunted, strange and with a light above that seemed to taunt this thing that they were made of, bait them to the surface. Thus, they followed. It had always been in their particular nature to want to seek that light. Many of their siblings tried, many others did not bother, but they simply were drawn to it too intensely to give up. It had always been in them to seek them, and perhaps that was how she caught them. It was in the past where her snares would catch, and it was in her light the very thing they could not resist. To live without knowing a light was to live in ignorance, and it could be a blessing. But now that they knew one, this emptiness and darkness was akin to suffering, and she knew exactly how to reel them in. Another light to bait them up from the safety of ignorance.

She gave them time, in a different manner. It was a talent of the lights, they supposed, to gift time. The Pale King rewarded Hallownest with days and nights, hours and fractions, and she bestowed upon them the gift of recollection. For they used to don't think much of the past, even less of the future. They harboured memories, but didn't revolve in them, didn't let them brew. Each day was a challenge and yesterday they had been smaller, tomorrow they were closer to being bound, thus every day they endured it without thought and without expectations. A simpler living, they supposed. An aloof, distant living, but quite safe as well from the weight of emotions, concerns over the future and wallowing over the past. A way of life she made sure to revoke. She taught them, one thought at a time, and how to deepen them. How to recall. Address once again the hurried past and present it to the light of their mind in a new angle, with different expectations. She taught them how to feel and not hold it, but rather step into it, further and further, letting it coat their legs, their waist, fill their eye sockets and drown them whole. She taught them to see love in the Pale King, and hate him for it. Hate themselves for hating him. Hate themselves for loving him. Love themselves for loving him. All manners of combinations, braided in the complexity of the living, in paradoxical torture. 

She gave them what the Pale King had not. Here, they had a will for her to crush and break as many times as she saw fit, seeing in them embodied two of her most loathed enemies, the rival light and the swallowing void, and the pain she could not inflict them she would inflict upon her vessel. She gave them a mind to think, so not even the silence was safe anymore, no memory of theirs was vacant from pain and melancholy, nothing was ignorant of emotion as it once had been. She broke the tap and would let them drown in their own memories, their own head, at their own hands. At last, here, she gave them a voice. To hear them howl, hear them cry and hear them beg. Hear them call for a father that would not hear them.

The Forgotten Light had corroded the Pure Vessel in all ways she could, broke them from their envisioned perfection, destroyed them from everything they were composed of. But even then, they stood against her. To the last day. For this was the beauty of this place, and the nature of gifts was such; those things once given, were theirs to do as they saw fit. She gifted them recollection, and they wielded their memories of their father when there was no strength left on them. When they pained, they cried, and it was the only comfort they knew, also the strength when they had none left. Here, in her realm, with the gifts she handed them, they grew their defiance in the form of voice, stone and pillars of rotten shell. She taught them love and hatred, and it was what made them grip their nail time and time again. Every slumber, every time they closed their eyes, until the end of all time. This was the beauty of her paradoxical realm. Here they were broken, but never had they ever been so whole. Here she destroyed them, and what she inflicted upon them also made sure to make them stand eternally.

_ "I am here, Old Light."  _ They called, their eyes seeking the horizon for the source of light. The clouds played with the golden light like a maze of mirrors, making it difficult if not impossible at times to tell where she would come from. But nonetheless, they were ready. Here, they were whole. A black hand spun their nail in an arc, another grip aligning a little above the other. Together they gripped a spotless great nail, forged of Pale Ore and carved in spiraling designs. The flat of the blade rested against the plain between their eyes. The golden light bathed spotless armour, painting them too in golden light. Hers, everything here was hers, them included. 

But they weren't a diligent, quiet prisoner of hers. They were bound to her, true, enslaved to guard her, jailer and jailed where the difference was only in nomenclature. They too made a prisoner out of her. It was them that kept her here, where she could storm her hate but never be fulfilled. Break them time and time again, but they would keep standing, keep climbing up. They didn't cower to her light, never did, never would. Perhaps that was why they were chosen, after all. No Vessel had ever been so eager to burn themselves in light as themselves were. None were as desperate for a spot next to brightness. None were as foolish, stubborn, yet enthralled by them. And she was their light now too. Hated, but all the light they had, for the one they loved were not here for them anymore. And they weren’t letting her go anywhere.  _ "You know how our affair goes. Show yourself." _

Their voices were much louder than any other sound in this realm. There was a breeze, slight and small, that only served to discreetly but constantly move the clouds far, far away. Distantly, bells twinkled constantly by this same breeze - this sort of trinket from moths had the purpose to lull their kind to sleep, but here, all they knew was that they could hear them now, but not see it. The twinkling sounds called away from this light and into the waking world, but they did not follow it. They were waiting for her. For whatever manner she chose to battle them today, sometimes with blades, often with words, always they lost but nonetheless she was here, every time, and it was what they had grown to know. It was their purpose, their due. This was their fulfillment, and they embraced the pain she brought them.

_ "...Are you taunting me? Is this how you welcome me in our home?"  _ They spoke, lowering their nail for a moment so they could lean a little and look below the main platform. Void of the source of light, too. It wasn't common for her to manage them with silence - she knew that it dug on them in an awful manner, few punishments quite as bad and maddening as being left awake and abandoned in the dark, but they weren't her prisoner only, she too was theirs, and it brought her no fulfillment to manage them with darkness and abandonment. It was against her nature, and when the matter was resilience to the dark, they would not be the ones starving in darkness first. Her hate was bright and it would eat her up alive if she did not breathe it out in some manner. They were such breathing mechanism. She would not be gone for long, they thought. Would come faster if they taunted, perhaps, and few things irked her as much as them raising desecration upon her realm and claiming it as theirs as much as hers. By all means, she should be here already.  _ "What became of your creativity and resourcefulness, moth? Do not offend me with this meager attempt at illusion." _

There was something wrong, they supposed. The winds didn't budge in the slightest, the clouds kept moving and they had looked towards all directions, but they were not seeing any spot any brighter than the other. They couldn't spot her when she truly wanted to conceal herself from them, but she rarely wielded so much effort. It brought her no contentment, they supposed. They had become rather talented in this realm, at discerning its cues, inflicting their will upon it. It went as far as what she permitted it, but nonetheless they developed such skills. They took their nail and stepped out of the main platform. On the endless clouds below, another formed. Then another, then another. Lamp posts began emerging from clouds, unattached to any ground support but pierced the clouds either way. Through their descent, emerged from the golden veil a building.

The spikes of its roof cut through the dissipating clouds as they approached. An arcade was being revealed, with its tall ceiling covering a straight passageway, two stores at each side. Painted glass panels stood beyond columns, to replace the vitrin of shops. None were broken, and all revealed the never ending realm outside. Carved stone, painted tiles and glowing templates. Beautiful white ferns grew in bowls and cascaded down from pots, full of life as if they had been nursed by the White Lady herself and her harp’s melody. Music echoed quietly within the Arcade, gente as the bells outside. The building was shaped like a cross, with its junction making a circular area, doomed by a glass ceiling that permitted even more light within. Within its heart, a small bandstand stood. It was a delicate thing, only a step taller than the Arcade's floor and with a roof of wire stretching from the edges of its octagonal shape, to meet in a beautiful arch as tall as they were. Here, there was no rain it needed to shelter itself from, so it forgo the roof the original one possessed.

This thing wasn't a construct but rather a memory. Another bandstand like this stood on the City of Tears, and there was always some music playing from it, even in Hallownest's darkest hours. Now, there were no musicians here, but at its centre a small relic played. A tiny music box, with a familiar melody. Tied to the thin metal pillars, where bugs would tie wreaths and flowers for the musicians, the Pure Vessel's own instruments were leaning against it, like offerings and requests to this arcade’s sole musician. A hammer, not unlike Hegemol's but with cruel spikes in it. A shield, nearly as tall as they were, shaped like a barrel sawed in a vertical half. Spear nails as well as smaller blades carved to embed soul. An embroidered silk cloak, pale and sheer, with the crest of King and Kingdom. Instruments from a play long cancelled. Belongings from that life of before that they had been taught to appreciate only now. Now that they were gone and here they were clearly not hollow, if they ever were.

They put down their great nail against one such vacant pillar, opened the small gate of the bandstand, and took a seat on its step. Long legs stood forward, and beyond the shelter of the wire frame they could see the never ending clouds, the endless brightness of the dream realm. They felt like a lumafly, bored out of their mind in this gilded cage of theirs. They waited, sitting on the bait of their own making. Taunting her with a peace they did not feel. If they seemed happy for too long, she sure would come. If she didn't, then there was definitely something wrong, and he might as well lose themselves to panic. They couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong.  _ "...Old Light of mine, I will wait." _

“Even now you would prefer to be in her grasp over none at all.”

These worlds erupted with no announcement, with no foretelling to their arrival. They broke the delicate silence of the dream realm, broke the distant twinkling of bells and the melody of the music box with a voice unfitting this place of black, white and gold. Here, themselves were perfect. Spotless and untarnished, and their reaction was immediate, bolting from their place and catching their nail from the place it rested, to turn towards the once-vacant bandstand with the pure weapon ready to meet this foreign enemy.

And foreign he was. But also, so very familiar. Within the bandstand, he stood, only tall enough to fit within the golden structure that roofed delicately the musicians’ shelter, and even such a mundane thing could look particularly fitting when surrounded by a being so bright that he coloured stone and metal in a reddish hue. The moth wings folded around him protruded around his neck, framing in an exquisite collar the face that was bearer of the most intense of gazes. A being of hand drawn features, sculptured horns and searing heat, that they could feel like a heated blanket thrown over their shell, pressing against their face and seeping through the eye sockets of their head, heating the voided coiled within that always squirmed when met with lights. This was such a light. Unbelonging of this place, but there were no frontiers to Higher Beings, dreams and reality merging when they willed it so, and often in the most mysterious manner. The wrapped wing cloak unfurled a little from itself, as the being brought an arm from within it. Lithe, dark as bloodied stone, reflecting like marbles the red light himself brought. Fingers arched upon meeting one another, and suddenly they snapped in a sudden, sharp noise.

Plenty of things were wrong. Time overlapped, in a way, two periods placed over one another. For this was the Radiance’s realm, and they knew themselves to be bound in the Temple of the Black Egg. They knew this was their fate, their doom, and they knew not an end to this eternal torment. At the same time, they also knew this being, from another time. They knew this face, these dark horns now longer and brilliantly red, and the wing cloak laced around a crimson figure, now brighter and redder than they had ever seen before. They knew this moth, of heat and flame, and like themselves, this one wasn’t bound by the dryness of flesh nor the dullness of age. No, here they were whole, the Pure Vessel nearly glowing in the purity and starkness of their soul, completely enraptured in her realm, and the Nightmare King was every inch flame, a hot presence that they felt against their shell, a threat to burn should they step any closer. Redder, from horn to wing, from eyes to miasma.

The golden lights outside heated, reddened. It was a dark realm now, with flame within now black, coiling clouds. The realm was a conflagration, burning in clouds of smoke that the wind did not dismiss. Dark and bright red, the wind now sounded not like the bells of the moth tribes, but like sparkling flames, crackling in bonfires and lanterns. Those too would lead them into the waking world, should they follow the sound. But they were not going anywhere. For the other time that overlapped this one was a time where they knew this being in the waking world. He had seen him before, astoundingly beautiful even in the duller, living world, where everything seemed marred by dust, damage or dents. And even then, he was as beautiful as he was terrible, breathing out alarm like he breathed out heat. The wandering King, the last Hallownest would see, for the Hallownest of that time was a fading Kingdom and as such, called into its last breaths the Grimm Troupe.

Took them awhile for them to pierce together what was happening. To make sense of the two mindsets, to gather time in a comprehensible manner, as well where they were, and when they were. Ignorance was truly a blessing, they supposed, for when things fell into place, so did the understanding of what the scarlet being told them. 

They weren’t in the Temple of the Black Egg anymore. Hadn’t been there for a while, in fact. They were asleep in some place, having been trying to drag their increasingly weaker body across the fading Kingdom, their corpse now most likely collapsed in some nook and corner and being watched by their concerned sibling. How long they had been unconscious since they dropped down was unknown to them, but perhaps through analysis of the Ghost of Hallownest’s despair, one could guess it hadn’t been for a brief while. There were still leagues to go to arrive at their destination, from the Queen’s Gardens towards the Ancient Basin. Their goal was clear, as well as its purpose. At the Abyss, their sibling knew of a place where theoretically the Void could help mend their shell back to one piece. And after everything that took place in the Queen’s Gardens, they didn’t have it in them to do anything but to follow any kind of hope they had. Any goal, any order, any suggestion. Anything to give them a direction, for their nonexistent hopes had been kindled to a conflagration at the discovery that the White Lady still lived, then killed beyond salvation once she opened her mouth to speak.

They weren’t this Pure Vessel in the waking world anymore. They were a scarred, damaged, abandoned thing. There was no light out there for them, not their father, not their mother, and even here the Radiance was absent as well. The waking world had never been kind to them, but now it seemed terribly hostile for them to even think of waking. This dream couldn’t be her doing, for she was long, long gone. This was their own doing, they supposed. They had thought until now that with her departure, so was gone their ability to dream. Not at all. It was as if she lived in them still, everything recreated spotlessly as she had always done. They could recreate everything but her, they supposed. 

There was no need to question themselves on why they wanted to see her once again. They knew the answer, as difficult to gather into words as they were. It seemed like the Nightmare King knew it so as well, for the words he chose to hand the Pure Vessel. The music in their pale Arcade had stopped and hadn’t been mourned. With the building now darker than it had ever been before, the white ferns were replaced by hanging lanterns, lit up in crimson fires that burnt on no fuel. The music box hadn’t stopped at their accord, but perhaps the Nightmare King’s own. The silence was filled by another melody.

At a corner, in a bench coated by patch-worked cloth, the Troupe’s musician played. His eyes glowed now, and his head wasn’t turned to Vessel and King, but rather focused down on his instrument, that filled the realm with a somber yet still livid melody. The intrusion was complete, and they could not hold it in themselves to feel enraged by it. Rather, they felt something akin to shame. They let themselves lower their nail, eyes falling to the thing of rare metal. It too, like everything here, was but of their own making. Still in their grasp, it grew brittle at the surface, falling apart into gray leaves, as if it had never been anything more than the last fern of this realm, and they finally willed it to come apart. 

_ “It is not I who has dreamt of you, but rather the other way around. To what do I owe the honour?”  _ They spoke, letting their eyes meet once more the scarlet being before them. With an arm folded over his chest, the Nightmare King looked most regal. So different from their own version in the waking world, yet not at all. Unhindered by dust and time, here there was no coat of ash to dull the bright red of his glow. Here, his cloak and wings spread before his legs like the cruel feet of a thorned rosebush, to open like the clawed hand of a torch at his collared neck. Beautifully cruel, they promised burn and cut even here, should they dare to touch. 

Alas, did they want to take that arm on theirs either way. Take it, bask in his burning presence until their dreaming mind was ruined, and not for a moment longer think of the golden light that should have met them here instead. But they knew they wouldn’t be given such leverage, no. They watched the moth’s feet take down the step of the bandstand and approach them, unhurried, not any less warm. He was not here to court them, they knew, despite how much they wished they could cling to the delusion. A being like the Nightmare King did not dream by accident. “Does it surprise you, dear Knight, that I keep a close eye on you and your sibling both? It shouldn’t. They are bound to me by contract unfulfilled, and I am bound to you by the performance you play.” 

As he approached, the Pure Vessel noticed even more the differences between the Nightmare King and the one they had met in the waking world. They couldn’t name a favourite form even if prompted to. Here, they were painful, a burn to the back of their shell, opposite force to what resided within, but so impossibly beautiful that they couldn’t find it in themselves to protest his presence. In the waking world, the Troupe Master in his shorter, more disheveled version, sounded all the alarms of a mysterious bug who could pull into a kiss with a hand, and pull into a blade with the other. Earthly demigod, wandering roads and caressed by the holy winds that lulled all beings of the wastelands beyond into a sacred Kingdom. He, who had been immune to such calls until it was in himself to visit and terminally rule Hallownest.

There could be no favourite form, not when they were clearly the same. One shelled to meet the waking world and take part in it, live it, suffer through it. Another peeled of any mortality, here simply to burn forevermore. Burn the Hollow Knight, included. They were no light themselves, and if they had become just another nightmare for the wandering king to consume, then be it. They offered no protest. They knew nothing besides an endless tameness and gratefulness for the light that broke the silence of their mind. Or so that was all that they had in themselves to do when the Nightmare King approached. His words weren’t lost to them. They brought a weight to their rendition, a guilt to their contentment. A bittersweet joy it was to hear the Nightmare King speak. For the tone was velvet, the intention must be most generous, but the words… Those scrapped at the emotions time had deposited overtime and brought up old wounds to the surface. The thoughts they ignored.

The awareness that they were so terribly incomplete, even now. A creature that should not exist, and only did so based on a purpose they failed at, expectations they did not meet. With no mission anew, with no other beacon to lull them, what was their existence but this miserable wandering? Thoughts that they often kept to themselves, but by the tone of the Nightmare King, they weren’t invisible to him. “A sad play, the one you perform. You are always seeking a light, either to blame all your woes in, or to thank for all your gifts.”

Oh, he knew. Either the Pure Vessel’s shell offered no barrier to shelter their thoughts and emotions, or the Nightmare King simply was that much of a Troupe Master, feeding in nightmares and tragedies for so long that there was nothing new in them, no thought that he hadn’t heard before, no pattern he hadn’t accompanied from beginning to end. They could not guess which one was it, but they knew either way, they were bare to that moth, like they had been to another, once, and she sorted through them as she saw fit. Maybe the Nightmare King would be more gentle in his handling.

At least his intentions were gentle indeed. The hand he raised to their shell, palm and fingers resting against the lower rim, it carried an unfathomable gentleness, kindness embodied in an unthinkable, impossible mercy. But also one that burned, heat seeping from that palm and yellowing the shell below. They could feel it, but not move away. Nothing held them besides their own will, not yet broken. Damage of this kind did not carry into the waking world. They would let him burn them to coal and ash, if they so wished. To their immobility, the scarlet flame only but watched them, watched their palm turn shell black, then he removed his hand with a shake of his head. “This cannot be for much longer. Their absence will tear you apart, and so will your search for a replacement.”

Their stillness was the wrong answer to that touch. It had been terribly gentle, but also a test. Those words held more good intentions than the Pure Vessel themselves had. Grimm saw it all, somehow, and seemed to dislike what it was that he was seeing. Perhaps it was a mixed feeling for him too, liking and disliking the tragedy coming undone before his eyes. The Hollow Knight too, themselves, couldn’t name what it was that they felt towards their fate. Comforted by the thought they were on the only conceivable path, or mourning desperately their failures and the state of the world, mourning everything that wasn’t and could have been. They didn’t know, but some conflict seemed to ail the scarlet flame, and woe be this Knight, who wished they could brush away such things from the Nightmare Heart like raindrops off maroon shell. 

_ “My sibling believes some time can be bought, by visiting our birthplace.”  _ They said like one would attempt to offer comfort. The tragedy being played was of their own life and of their own making, yet, there were worse things than its own weight. They, for one, hated the burden they had become in the waking world. To think that here too they offered such a thing to one that had handled them with only gentleness and patience, it was a very ill thought. For themselves, they couldn’t bring themselves to do the slightest movement. Bury them alive for all they cared, they wouldn’t bother. But a burden to the red-eyed moth? To come apart before their concerned sibling? The thought of such things were what permitted them to keep walking behind the Ghost of Hallownest. The desire to unburden could lead them through great distances. Always had. If everything else failed, then at least that fulfillment they would cling to. 

They thought their words would comfort. They thought that this last bout of strength would unburden the scarlet flame before them, that slight determination perhaps would bring more contentment to his voice. But it did not. He was anything but content when he spoke, in fact he sounded even sharper in his questioning. “And then what? Will you put them on a pedestal if it works? Or your sister, perhaps? Or me? Or keep searching for what you won’t find?”

His words stung, but they weren’t meant to hurt. They only did so because the truth in them was unquestionable, and they knew they were willing to do anything, suffer whatever fate, carry themselves through whatever failure, endure whatever torture, anything rather than address it. The fact was that they did not know a life without another to show them the way, a life where they weren’t told how things were, what to do and what to be. There was no self if it wasn’t given, and they didn’t think they could ever address it for it had never been taught. How could they learn something that had never been taught?

The Nightmare King turned his head to the side, as if he was trying to choose what words would bring the reaction they hoped for. Anything to bring a reaction perhaps, for this entire time, the Pure Vessel had remained entirely still, finding comfort in observing and standing out of the way. All this time, the Hollow Knight had always hoped. Hoped their words would be heard, hoped their intentions would come across, hoped but never quite budged from where they stood. It was a regret of theirs, although they weren’t sure they would have done any differently if given a chance. The events of the past were miserable, but they had achieved something. Bought Hallownest some time, just enough for their sibling to succeed. There was no hope for any better outcome, aware of their own capabilities and limitations. It had been all they could be, regardless of any wandering thought or hope.

But here, there was nothing at the stake but their own life. Something so small. Hallownest was already gone, no light, and with the Nightmare King here they knew it would be the last that the holy Kingdom would ever see. The main story was over, curtains were pulled and closed, the musicians had left, only they remained. Anything they did might affect only themselves at this point. There was no other time to be bold, they supposed, and carefully they moved a hand to touch the Nightmare King’s own, pressed against their own chest as it was, as if he held together the cloak of his wings. 

They brought that hand closer, and over to the pauldron of their right shoulder. The ring to bind them was only but a finger’s width away, but the Nightmare King made no move to hold on to it. On metal, his hand remained, but the other did unfurl from within his cloak of wing to rest on the Pure Vessel’s other hand. The step he did forward was out of his own will, and preceded the hand that the vessel allowed to come to rest against the moth’s back. The ribbons of his wings felt as they looked, velvety and light, and his hands had a weight wherever he touched. The carapace of their bare hand couldn’t darken from the heat, but odds were that they would melt before their pauldron did.

At the bandstand, a discrete pale light ruptured the tapestry of the dream, and royal retainers took their stand. Their eyes leaked the same void Kingsmold did, constructs that the Hollow Knight had always felt such strangeness and kinship towards. Now they were here, constructs not of King but of the Goddess’ vessel, and from their memory, attuned from so many courts, they desiccated the Troupe’s musician’s melody, and joined. Instruments that they doubted still remained in Hallownest, but lived on in their dreams. Harp and cello, violin and piano and viola. Enriched in their Arcade, the Troupe’s waltz was as easy to fall into as if it was a battle, thrilling but well practiced. And the wandering king in their grasp seemed equally well versed in this trade.

His red eyes were unreadable when they bore in theirs, but alas, weren’t they willing to take on the mystery and danger anyway? When he spoke, sharpness seemed to have been defused off him, but rather replaced by a surrendered exasperation, as he fell into the rhythm and danced with them. “Do not give me that, do not turn such eyes to me. You are transparent to me, Wyrmchild.”

And perhaps they were indeed. The Hollow Knight wasn’t particularly caring of what the Nightmare King would do with what he saw. He must see the pathway they had traced so far and possibly could foretell in his own manner the one they would take from now on. Could see perhaps their hopes and intentions when they stepped at the waltz’s rhythm and led the scarlet flame along themselves, dancing as if bearing a torch - they could determine the direction, the swing of the flame, but it was not at their own accord, not their tempo or momentum. Grimm had his own timing, his own grace that the Pure Vessel was all but terribly bewitched to watch. They couldn’t imagine any other manner to dance with him, if not at the Nightmare King’s rhythm. They couldn’t think of any song to play, but one they built around the accordion’s solo. It was what they were, after all. Built to surround, to bind, to give number. The backer strings to soloists. 

“You are a Knight, in heart, in mind, in nail. But you lack that crucial thing they all carry, the thing their journey teaches them.” When he spoke, he was quieter. Even if this was not her forgotten realm but an arcade full of passersby bugs, they did not think anyone else would have heard it above the music. Sounding soft as he was quiet, he continued. “You have not learnt how to mourn loved ones, purposes and missions, and live on beyond them. You dance and cope like a prince, having never been taught a life beyond such boundaries. But it is not too late.”

It was so strange and foreign to them still that the Nightmare King cared in any way. Hornet’s care too bewildered them, as well as their sibling’s. But it was unmistakable that he did care in some manner, perhaps in the way that a Troupe Master might care when witnessing a play going wrong, an artist concerned with the art rather than with a fellow artist. Perhaps, he cared in the manner the Hollow Knight cared. Perhaps it was something in between, but in any way, it was not something for them to know. They might be transparent, but the Nightmare King was not. “I will not replace either light that you have lost. No one will. For it, I am sorry, but you must stop searching.”

They knew. One thing they knew all too well was the truth on the Nightmare King’s words, and the ache it brought. They did not know another life, but that seemed to be not enough of an excuse. They might be empty and without anything else to live for, but alas, they were being asked to stop feeling that gap. To be awake, and see the darkness of their Temple of the Black Egg, and welcome it. It wasn’t something easy to achieve.  _ “I will not be as much of a classic tragedy then.” _

The Nightmare King’s eyes rarely left theirs, and their dance’s pace never faltered. This carnivalesque and melancholic waltz might as well go on forever with the manner in which the Troupe’s musician tied the melody’s end with its beginning, a pattern in turn that led the complimenting band trained by ear to play along in an eternal song. They would have liked it to last forever, with the scarlet flame in their melting grasp. Truly, they did have the intention to do as told and stop seeking a light, but if only they could give their word then stretch this moment forever, it could have been the loophole to simply don’t ever see that through. This realm remained truly a place of no victories nor losses, where they were broken but whole, and where they would seek no light for there was one such being right here, and since they weren’t searching, their word wouldn’t have been broken. 

“No, and it should be clear that it is not with me in mind that you should do anything. But do know there is just as much beauty to other genres of plays." He explained, quiet as the crackling of the lanterns, below song and outside of time. This moment wouldn’t last for long. Dreams were peculiar for always lasting enough time to their crucial and narrative completion, or being interrupted. They weren’t bound by hours, one hour was enough to make the most elaborate of dreams come through, and sometimes, several hours wouldn’t be enough to keep a dream from being interrupted. It was too the fate of this one, interruption or unhurried disclosure. 

Either their sibling or death would meet them at the end. They weren’t in a hurry to see it end, not at all. Their hand was losing the grip on the Nightmare King’s own, burnt beyond much of a grasp, so they led it to their other pauldron. The movement did not disturb their dance, even as the Nightmare King joined his hands behind the Vessel's neck, and said Vessel found themselves doing the same behind the other's back. It simply made them slower, but not at all a downgrade with how it also brought the scarlet flame closer to them. "I would not be a Troupe Master worth my title if I did not know how to appreciate all genres. This is not my play, but yours. I am eager to see how you will conduct it."

_ "Nightmare King, a question if I may."  _ They spoke, careful even then to handle a question that might seem even remotely intrusive. The waking world might not recognise the Troupe Master for the light he was, not see in those bright eyes the potential that he had, and they knew such was the Higher Being's own will, choosing to roam the world as most bugs did and only unveil their nature at the end of each era. Nonetheless, did the Hollow Knight recognise him for what he was, eternally a wandering king, even without a Kingdom to burn. Such recognition warranted immense respect and care with their words, but also, sparkled so much curiosity in the Vessel as well. As he remained silent, they took it as the sign for them to proceed.  _ "I must ask why. I appreciate your intention, but does it not go against your nature? Perhaps you and I both would better enjoy a quick but bright tragedy."  _

The immediate answer they got was a tilt of his head, which just delicately tipped his horns to the side and made him seem so much like the fiery, unhinged son they had unleashed upon the waking world. A talent to question without words, and make a plain sound something very expressive and judgmental. And they thought they couldn't be anymore enthralled by the Nightmare Heart's embodiment, yet here they were, wishing the waking world imploded into itself and did not dare to ever intrude in their dreams again. "I am more than my nature, Wyrmchild. Several incarnations, soon to embody another. In all of them I learn something new. A few taught changes, a few adaptations upon birth, others entirely by choice."

The Pure Vessel wondered how that must be like. Perhaps not unlike molting, they supposed. It was the only thing they had to compare, but even those had been into the form and role they were idealised in. They had been architectured, built, not a merry accident. There had never been anything in their life as disorderly and chaotic as the Nightmare King presented himself as, and the world beyond. Things happening by chance, or envisioned at the brink of action. A wanderer's life and mentality was entirely opposed to the Kingdom and kin the Pale King brought to life, much like the Radiance was outlandish to his methods with her liking for instinct and favouring of a hive mind. They supposed that like her, they wouldn't ever understand the Nightmare Heart any better. They were from entirely different worlds. "The first to gather the flame and raise my breed was a Troupe Master. The latest is your sibling. They already left their contribution to me. The child has a liking for exploring ruins and trial by combat. A liking for Void beings too, I believe."

Such gentle words, in a veiled compliment. They were not going to get anything more transparent from him, and alas, they didn't think they needed to. What other words did they need but the confirmation that in some way and manner, the Nightmare King had a liking for them? It was enough to make the Pure Vessel feel like they were melting, not only where they touched the scarlet flame but within their own shell and carapace. Melting into the Void perhaps, just so they could curl around this dream like a wounded animal and shelter it from any tampering and twisting. They wanted to carry this into the waking world, if they ever shook awake and back into it. They wanted to carry the heat they felt into the very Void of themselves, burning lulled by music and kind words. They wanted to remember the branding heat of his gentlest touch, and the concern behind each word. If they could not save the entire dream in their waking mind, could they at least save this?

This was not how dreams worked, they knew. Something would carry, but it was anyone's guess what and how. Anyone's guess how the same words that the Nightmare King handed them here would be understood in their waking mind. Everything as of late was simply and plainly anyone's guess.  _ "I hope I get enough time from my birthplace to find the opportunity to dance with you again." _

For that was what awaited them in the waking world, was it not? The harsh reality of that time out there, in the dark, was a difficult thing to process here. But they knew that was what they were seeking, what they were doing. It was what they were dragging their half eaten corpse towards. Something in the Abyss that could perhaps mend their shell in some miraculous outcome. In a most realistic one, they simply would be given some extra time. Time, this thing that kept on existing in some broken, mysterious manner, even if the age of clocks and watches was gone. They would be given some extra time, if they hammered on. Perhaps enough time that they could dream again, and it would be a gift not of words for the Hollow Knight to hear and heed but only a dance for them to rejoice. Oh, how they would have loved such. To just dance with the scarlet flame, and never once think of anything but the beauty in which his features had been drawn. 

The beauty he was, when his fingers pet at their shell and scorched it black, and the pale of his face seemed to brush against the Pure Vessel's armour, the velvet of his wings a soft fold against their forearms. Close enough so that they felt like they were melting entirely, and perhaps the pain of burning was the only thing they would carry into the waking world. A ghost pain, that they didn't entirely feel but they knew, and fought the sense of harm that repeated itself like a siren in their heads. They were incredibly talented at ignoring that alarm. Right now, they were glad for that ability. "May that be so, and in a better dream."

There couldn't be a better dream, they thought. A miracle didn't happen twice in the same place, and it was delusional to think it would. Nonetheless, did they share the thought, and the elegy' prayer. As the Troupe's musician and the royal retainer band played on, too they kept dancing. For a few moments, for ever. Dreams were unhurried, things, but also only lasted as long as they needed to. And did they need to hold the Nightmare King close and forgo the weight of the world entirely, just so they could bask in light and blessed, warm oblivion. Darkness could seek them out when they woke, for their luck was so and they knew that for suffering, they would always wake.

For now, they slept. They let the edge of their shell rest against the bridge of red horns, the angle joining so spotlessly as if it had been carved by the Highest of Beings, the God of Gods, if only such being cared for spotless architecture. The angle was enough to grant the Hollow Knight sight of the bandstand, where the hollowed out royal retainers played, only shell of soul lured into this place at the Knight’s beckon, and in their discrete, pale light, they moved only as much as to tend to their instruments. In harmony, their fingers caressed the silk of harp, and drew the bows on a string quartet. Despite following the Troupe’s lead, they were the only thing red did not paint in this realm. Them, and the Pure Vessel, whom burned at the touch of the Nightmare King’s face below their shell. They would turn black like coal, but they weren’t tainted red. 

The pauldrons weren’t resisting the heat too well, but they did need to enjoy this a bit longer… As always, this place offered solace from the suffering that awaited above. As always, this was and would always be their escape from the darkened world, even if here they were only destroyed, time and time again. Nonetheless they escaped, for as long as it was permitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO ALL MY FELLOW GRIMM SIMPS
> 
> Wow, thanks for making it here! We are what? 50% through the whole thing I have planned? 75%? I don’t know, and there are odds I will just exceed 100% because I write long thingy. 
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTICE IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON TOP: This chapter and the next were an entire single thing, but again, it got too long. So, I separated them. But that is not an even cut. This one is shorter than the usual, but the next is considerably longer. Don’t lose hope in me yet. I might -MIGHT- post chapter 6 in the first hour of Monday out of guilt, depending on how far I am into chapter 7. So do check by then, if you can/want. I love you.
> 
> I suppose that school must have begun for many of you. I have noticed a consistent decrease in messages during the week. I understand, truly, but I also do notice and mourn it a little. There’s nothing that brings me as much joy as getting a comment or any kind of feedback. If you can drop one, I will be beyond thankful. If you want to add me in IG or Discord, feel free. (@riptaide or Herja#8664)


	6. Accolade in the Crib of the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would manage to post this morning. I was wrong. So so so wrong. I literally just finished and posted.
> 
> I’m not very proud of this one chapter. Sometimes quality drops massively at the same rate it grows in length. Jeff I am sorry, I have typos and am being wordy again.
> 
> Cope with me. May the 7th treat us all kinder.

Dying would have been some kind of mercy, but they weren’t readily granted those in this world, be it the world they were born in, or the worlds in between, held in suspension by the will and existence of beings far greater than themselves could ever imagine. Lands that held not after death, but neither did precede life, yet exceeded the limits of both and caught in this in-between, just beyond one’s conscious reach. Tools could shape and cut passages between this world and the next, common bug could fall in such places should they sleep or slip into such a realm, but nothing they ever did could rival the nature of Higher Beings, able to weave these places to their own liking and image, sink parts of the living world into it, or emerge dreams into the waking. 

Theirs was a powerful dream. Themselves but only a single needle, adding embroidery to a tapestry already there. She had made herself at home in their mind, and it was now vacant on their head, with only themselves to meet the emptiness and alter it however they saw fit. In many ways, they were but incapable of mimicking what she could do. The fabric of that realm not only was beyond their skill to replicate, but was also much greater than themselves could grasp. Few things made it there - emotions and thoughts, the illnesses of the mind, many of them remained grounded in the living world as if it was but a sickness born in shell, thus in shell it remained. Their dysfunctional behaviours followed them there, but not the entirety of their thoughts, nor the emotions they could brew.

That numb existence was but a deafened, blunt thing that didn’t dwell in carnal depth in what surrounded them, what had preceded their dream nor what circumstances they were going to wake to. Such things were distant, close enough to see but too far to touch, like something sunken in a lake too clear, where its actual depth betrayed the eye. They knew they would most likely wake, death no gift given, and in this world they would regain sight in there wouldn’t be any comfort awaiting, and anything that had felt like a comfort in dream would be a flower unravelling in thorns the moment they stirred. No comfort lasted well into the waking world, and perhaps if they had thought of that for long enough, they could have prepared themselves for it. But they had not. 

So when they woke, the first thing they felt was the intense, crippling cold of his absence, not only a longing in their heart but also an absence that ached in their softer joints, scratched within their carapace like a harsh breeze. They had never felt cold before, the temperatures didn’t cause them the discomfort that it brought to common bugs. But they supposed there was a first time for everything and they wouldn’t be leaving this life without experiencing that one ailment at least once. His absence preceded everything else, followed by the littlest jerk of their palm, a convulsion of last life as it scrapped at the groundwork below, fingers clawing at the cobblestones as if climbing a wall, albeit horizontal.

The stone was damp, and in between the uneven pavement, dust and dirt gathered, staining their fingers when they sought for a grip. Everything seemed to rob them of the heat they felt escaping their body, the stone drew it through their palm; the air, despite being so still here, seemed to draw heat from them as if it was steam for it to fan away. Their shell, discarded in whichever manner they fell, gazed from its spot on the floor but saw nothing but a smudged, blurry world that took it's time to clear before them. It hurt. The waking world hurt, in a manner living hadn't done before. Their mother and her words robbed them of their only comfort, a skill they had thought couldn't be taken from them; their inherent numbness to their surroundings, part of their void nature, it was slowly fading from them as if their carapace was growing thinner and more malleable at each passing but unmeasured hour.

They must be indeed running out of time, they thought. Their palm found a grip, and they stretched tension along their single arm. With strength applied, their chest trembled; the damaged plating along their spine used to be an immaculate craft, discrete but sturdy, that could bend with no issue or compress together to give the Vessel the best groundwork to the strength of their nail arm. Now, where it broke and bent, they couldn't move, and from places it had just barely healed or through the holes of their armour, they leaked Void near constantly. Their cloak, once a stark gray, now might as well be running out of clear spots. They felt their body's weakness, more than ever. Felt the struggle of pseudo-sinew pulling but failing, felt the thinness of their own carapace. They felt the sharp edges of their own spine digging against another plating as they tried to move to a seated position.

Unlike the dream, here they felt it all, were aware of it all. Of the path they had taken up to this place, and the reason they stopped here as well. As their vision began clearing, so did the desolate landscape before them. The ancient stone now in disarray, barren of any orderly structure, it all looked as random and crude as any natural cave. But it hasn't always been so. If the road they were discarded over and the cobblestones that paved it weren't enough sign, then the gateway before them should be. Here once lay the heart of Hallownest, with these roads full of passerby bugs like rivers that met a vast lake. Through it sailed retainers, the rich and the poor, natives and foreigners, all crossing this Kingdom to gather here and be granted passage beyond the gray archway that towered above them, but too was broken and wasted from time.

There should be a Palace beyond. Of clean, polished stone and well crafted pillars, with the most elegant capitals decorating their bases and tops, and potted beautiful plants that grew long enough to pool at the floor below if the Lady came and sang for them. A Palace that led to a wide courtyard before its gates, where by fountain and bush, the Knights would spar should the odds be kind and grant them the chance to meet. Behind the fountain, royal retainer and the royal cook would meet at the King's busiest hour and trade whispers, kisses and a promise. When day began, from the lonesome balcony above, the Pale King would spread his wings, tip his head back. Bask, first and foremost, in that light within himself, only for himself to feel should he be selfish. A Wyrm's soul was a thing of unfathomable power, but they imagined that for the Pale King it mustn't feel any different from how the Hollow Knight felt their own.

Filled with emotions, cursed with pains and weights. Sometimes, kindling courage like sparks from clashing metal. In that balcony, the Pale King would address himself, feel that thing that differed him from all others and yet, the thing he shared with all beings, from the lowest to the highest. A soul. There, he set his soul aflame, lit his shell from within and beyond, from his heart and through his shell like mist. A blinding light that the mirrors and crystals that were at every corner, at every room and every spire, would catch and channel upwards, to the stone and aqueducts above. At the same time he woke, above, any citizen from the City of Tears could catch it from their windows. The waters below would light up, slowly but progressively. Light would spiral up the glass works, over masonry, running upwards even through the raindrops that slid down any surface. 

The stone between capital and Palace mattered not, for in those mornings, every morning with no exception, King and city would wake at the same time. He would wake Hallownest every morning from its dreams with kind and luring light, and when it was time for the city to sleep again, he too would be there, to diminish his own glow, fold his limbs within his robes. After a long day at the Palace, it was at night when he rested, when he wandered, when he escaped this dark desolation of the world however he could. He crafted, he played the piano. He spoke poetry, in the manner only the drunk or the dead would do, scorned and nearly falling off the surface he let his body rest. He was patient, truly. But that did not mean he couldn't complain for the waits he was forced to bear. For the days he had to stall. For the bindings this world applied to him, and surely in his mind, he could do without.

So godly, yet, so simple. The cruelty of it all was to think that he had it all, the light, the kingdom, the foresight. Godly and spotless, without faults. His plan was as perfect as it could go, his experiment successful for they were there, at his side. But all the same, the Wyrm was but a being. Alive, despite most, and carrying his own weight plus his crowned head. He carried lost love, and mourning, and loneliness. Carried a price too great, and played a piano who used to accompany a harp and singer. She too was gone. He could write as many compositions as he wanted, as many mournful but hopeful orchestral pieces as he could spare the time to, but it did not mend the past nor offered him another future. It only aided him to breathe what he could not speak, not to any retainer at least, and the Hollow Knight was no true company. Like the witnesser of court intrigue, that none feared their presence. The vacant mute would not gossip. They only fetched the instruments, tuned and arranged. Learned, from watching, but never played.

Memories from that Palace were many. An endless repertoire that they could dwell on eternally if they so wished. Of balls and of dreadful evenings. Of anxiousness, of concern, of relief. Memories of words unsaid, words heard, an entire life lost that they hadn’t had the opportunity to live thoroughly. Even the sweetest memories now came to mind with a brand new somberness to accompany them, as they saw what became of the White Palace. 

_"Hollow!"_ They heard the exclamation and all of its ferocity, but turned their head towards the origin of the sound with no degree of alarm befitting the intonation. The rush of a mothwing cloak, the weight of the flutter of monarch wings, all in a monochrome flash their sibling quickly made their way to their side. Their absence from their immediate side when they woke had made them wonder how long they had been out this time, but only remotely so. _"You scared me quite a bit this time. You dreamt."_

There was no use asking their sibling how long they had been unconscious, they were born and raised in a world without time, acquaintances only to the endless night they were now all bound to. Freed from the threat of dawn, this eternal night was supposed to be a slightly lighter way of living, perhaps granting them a slightly kinder slumber. It did not. Their dreams were just as massively powerful and enrapturing as they had been under her grasp. Perhaps they inherited it from her, their team's vastness had the leftovers of her light, her memory, and as such she lived on in some manner in their own mind. As such, their dream was never something light, but rather the moth's intricate tapestry. What an ailment to inherit. What a place to visit, after hearing their sibling's explanation on what fate befell their lovely home.

The Ghost of Hallownest had been uncomfortable to explain what they had found in here. A Palace transported into the mind of a Kingsmold, littered with royal retainers who too dreamt forever, in halls overtaken by saws and thorns. Behind such a maze, a darkened throne room, and a memory. They were in such a memory, themselves. Despite their sibling's wariness to explain what they discovered and the reactions it could bring to the Hollow Knight, they had no reason to believe they lied. If they intended to, perhaps they would have kept the most important detail away from the tale. Would have spared them the knowledge that their father sat alone in his throne room, a husk of the beautiful being he had been. Would have spared them such a blow. 

Staring at the broken gateway, they still did not know how to feel about it. They were not new to this emotion, this feeling of abandonment. They were strangers however to how much it could hurt to have it confirmed. Hallownest was abandoned, just like they had been. By mother and father, and left to wallow their last moments, crawl and wheeze their last breaths. Retainers littered the Grounds and the Basin outside, leaning against doorways and in makeshift circles, set up camps. Hoping to catch the moment he would return, they died in their watch. Died like they meant to die in their sarcophagus, perishing only beyond eternity, at Hallownest's expected lifespan. How many times had they dreamt of their father finding another way, eons later, and coming for them in that terrible Temple they were bound in? How many times had they hoped that their father's genius would have granted them a second chance at life, and this time, one at his side and not bound by the deadline of their certain demise?

The only certainty they had was that Hallownest and its Pale King would outlast his Pure Vessel’s duty, and hopefully, if they could be allowed any slimmer of hope, of dream and of heart, they would outlive it all as well. But apparently, only themselves had stood their part of such promise unsaid. Only they had hoped by the very end, and even now. The irony that the one called Hollow was anything but, and resisted being so to the very end. Their father had been wrong, so very wrong. They were the least hollow of the vessels below. They simply had made it to the top first, and if they had known that doing so would have ruined their father and kingdom as they did, they would have never turned their eyes up and climbed. 

Regret was a poisonous thing. They knew not how to mourn, the Nightmare King had said. Accused them of doing so like a Prince would, unaware of a life beyond the duties of birthright and their role upon this world. He wasn’t wrong, they thought. There was nothing untrue in that accusation, yet having it pointed out didn’t feel like a solution, not as much as it felt like an accusation. Their gift and curse of recollection was something they carried at all moments, like a wound they could not escape feeling it’s ache. And from all things they could recall from that dream, all details and secrets concealed in melodies chosen, in the arrangement of ferns, hidden messages in a moth’s warm touch, what they chose to dwell on in this moment was only that phrase. To mourn like a Knight.

Wasn’t it already well known that they were no Knight? Had never been, despite the Pale King’s insistence on naming them such, for it was the role they would take on, and through such title he could perhaps pay the honours to what was his child’s walking, desecrated tombstone. To name them Knight was nothing but a desperate attempt concealed in kindness to soften the blow to his own heart and glow. To name that _thing_ a Knight was to, through it, name his dead child in a posthumous ceremony that only himself and her knew the true weight of. Prince was what they had hoped for, and what they mourned. A prince was what they dreamt of, children who before anything, before their talent with the nail or their talent with the arts, was a being of unique soul. A being whose title could not be taken from them, with a birthright greater than these lands, a fate greater than the world. For such an offspring the impossible was something that ought to be achieved every morning, perfection expected out of every movement. To know every song, to know the order of every event, to know the intricate organisation of his rule for a Prince should inherit it, and the King was bright, mighty, loved. To become anything less than what the King was and what they were made to be, it was unfathomable. Nonetheless, a Prince was idealised, dreamt of, hoped for, and loved.

There was no doubt that, despite most, they had been raised in such a manner. Maybe the Pale King didn’t even realise such, as they permitted the Hollow Knight to follow him constantly as if to remind himself at all times of what the stakes were even when he permitted himself to rest. He might have not even noticed that when he played, the Hollow Knight knew exactly what notes to attune his instruments for. He mustn’t have noticed that when he etched stone, over his shoulder, they read and absorbed all of what was written with the ease they learnt spells and nail arts. He mustn’t have noticed that when he instructed retainers in the order and arrangement of balls and proceeded to watch his guests dance, the Hollow Knight learned the movement like the pace of a battle, the evasion required for an enemy as fast and aggressive as themselves were.

The Nightmare King asked them to don’t seek that light, if they hoped to find another ending for their play. It was a suggestion, but also a delayed blow, perhaps meant to be struck only when they woke to their full faculties. In other words, the Nightmare King might as well have told them to don’t be what they were, and the Hollow Knight had thanked them for such advice. A fool, made so thrice. They didn’t think that was the Higher Being’s intentions with those words, they were all but extremely believing in the Higher Being’s goodwill, but one thing was for sure, he had been most vague with the words he chose. Perhaps he didn't know the answer for the trials the Hollow Knight had before themselves. Perhaps he kept himself from talking too much, and from making anything more clear, he might impose upon the Hollow Knight yet another expectation the Nightmare King was all but very hopeful they would break free from. 

Impossible to tell. There was so much to think of. So much recollection to do, dissect the meaning behind every melody, the positioning of every lamp of crimson fire, and the wordsmithing of the Nightmare King. And one thing they did not have right now, was time. 

Their sibling had remained on their side, allowing them this moment of quietness as they watched the gateway before themselves. Against its side, like Dryya’s body who remained guarding her wondrous Queen’s respite, a Kingsmold lay slumped against its wall, Void leaking from it in thick vines and roots. Such an odd construct that the Hollow Knight had been so used to seeing, often compared to, but with a terminal silence the Pale King had always differed. They were not the same, for the price of making them, bringing them to raise a nail and haunt these halls were not the same. If they thought back of that distinction, that memory, the thought that their father did not allow them to be regarded as the same thing could be seen perhaps, under the right light and angle, as a recognition of life. Perhaps they had thought so for all this time, and taken that supposed recognition for granted.

They missed that certainty terribly, now that their mother took it from them. Her words chaffed, weighted on their shoulders like cuirass and chains. Their father had promised her that they would not adorn Hallownest’s halls. They would not be remembered, and would not be regarded as anything beyond a construct. For her, to think of the price was a misery she warded away at whatever cost. For the Pale King, they welcomed the grave thoughts, spent long whiles either looking at them when the lights were out and mourning it all, or ignoring them entirely in plain sight. But he had given her his word that they would not be remembered. They would not be celebrated, they would not be mourned, not like Knights and beings and Princes were. Between them and her, there was no doubt of whom the King would prefer, and they could not hold that against their deceased father.

Nonetheless, it hurt. It hurt to hear those words from her, and imagine their father went through with his promise and erased them from every tale, every memory. He made compositions to every season and every Knight, but not for them. The construct he once clad in bright armour and silk, treated kindly and neutrally both so to honour the life lost to build them… It hurt to know that if they thought themselves anything more than a construct, it was their own delusion. They were meant to be a Knight, and were not. And they could not give him back either the heirs he lost by making the vessels, heirs he honoured by raising them as if they were one. When the Nightmare King said to stop seeking a light, was to forgo all these things, begin anew, scorching everything behind. So many great tales were spun in such a manner, a hero of unknown origins, born under uncertain seasons and tides. It would be their chance to start anew.

But what if they could not? What if all that they had were the things they were and the things they were not? What if this tragedy was too far ahead for them to simply stop it where it was now, and all they could do was to either see it end in bright and dramatic fate, or hold on the pieces until it ended in some anticlimactic, dragged out manner? What if there was no time anymore for a detour, and they were too close now to the peak of the viola’s frenzied cry, and soon the curtains would be drawn and all that they had were the things they did so far? 

If so, then they supposed they should keep going as they had. Feeling as they felt, within melting carapace and terrible dreams. The Nightmare King, like their sibling, had hopes for them. But themselves truly had not, and perhaps they should stop trying to remedy their endless mourning and seeking, and understand that the search was futile and the mourning eternal, but it was all they could do. Embody the Pale King’s composure, and honour the dead by pretending this life was what it was not. Pretend, perhaps, that at some moment some light would cross the corner and mend all things broken. 

As they felt their sibling’s hands below their shell, they lowered their head slowly, tilting it to look down at the smaller vessel. The plating along the back of their neck felt raspy and stiff with the movement, and as the hem of their shell lowered, their horns raised and the Void that had gathered within their vacant shell ran down from the edges of their eye sockets. Those streaks were drying but not washing off anymore. They tended to don’t wash off corpses. Nonetheless, their sibling bailed a hand within his darker cloak and raised the fabric to gently wipe them off. _“I hope it was a good dream, I did not feel comfortable enough to intrude. I ask you often to share what you are thinking of and you don’t… I won’t force that, your dreams are yours to keep.”_

The Nightmare King accused them of eventually, perhaps inevitably, put their sibling in the place where their lights once stood. Taking that kindness as the very reason why they should do anything, becoming the embodiment of everything they strived to please and hoped to impress. They could see why they would do that. Never before had the void bled through their eyes and joints, but even if it had, they doubted anyone of that life of before would have spared them this kindness their sibling did. Hornet had a duty to Hallownest and she would see it through, but their sibling seemed unconcerned with that. Unhurried. Their priority was them, and they had forgotten almost how that felt like. It was appealing, they knew, they would give the Nightmare King the recognition due for foreseeing that. 

But they couldn’t burden their sibling in such a manner. They would not, not with the entirety of their thoughts, nor with these expectations and standards they had set for a vessel like themselves and a light like him. They would not burden the Nightmare King with it either, even if they felt so exquisitely drawn to the moth, in an entirely different manner, better fitting to hushed poetry and dream-woven arcades. No lights to rule a Kingdom or the Hollow Knight, and in more ways than one, they were the same thing, Hallownest and them. Self-centered, broken, needy and abandoned. Bleeding void constantly, and missing the lights that made them so. They would not ask anything else from their sibling nor the Nightmare King, no. But did they want to, nonetheless. 

_“Can you stand? We are so close, Hollow.”_ The Ghost of Hallownest asked, unhurried, yet concerned. Their voice in their mind was an interference to the grim miasma they had filled their head with, but still they heard them. They had a destination to reach, this stop at the Palace all but a detour the Hollow Knight had chosen to do, the only moment in which they broke their undead wandering behind their sibling, lost to their heart and thoughts. Their body walked, animated like mold, unthinking of what awaited. When they neared the Palace Grounds however, the memory and pull was just too much for them to prevent themselves from stepping out from their sibling’s shadow and making their own way over.

The way home was something they could follow without the aid of their sight, it was wired into their body like the ability to stand. There was no destination too dire nor too urgent to find that they would prevent themselves that so very needed detour. Their sibling telling them of its fate hadn't stopped them. Knowing that fate and seeing what was left of the Palace Grounds would put no phantoms to rest in their heart, nonetheless they needed to see it. They needed to let it too corrode their already mangled heart. If they were to become a mausoleum of such memories and spirits, how could they leave this one behind. If they were willing to succumb under the weight of the memories they hoarded, this one was perhaps one of the most important. A sight to paint the outside of their timeless Arcade. 

Now perhaps they could heed by their sibling’s request. They turned their head to the side, moving their weight to compress the broken platting of their spine, centralising their balance just so they could free their hand from the ground and seek their great nail. Their search was slow, done so blindly, and the item in question wouldn’t be found if their sibling didn’t hurry a few paces to fetch and drag it, bringing its handle to their hand. The only thing that remained the same in this weapon was not its weight, its strength, it's shine or its usefulness. Was the texture, that despite having a few cracks lining its surface, it felt familiar in their hand. A hand that each time, felt less and less. Half of their hand was gone into numbness, the last two digits barely responding to movement. The structure that moved it was something they could feel from the outer carapace of their forearm, lacing below their shoulder, and grounding its strength in that damaged back of theirs. That support wasn’t only dented, but actively decaying. Where nails had been lodged to hold in place their pauldrons, the holes were opening, leaking and crumbling the carapace around the rims. 

Those last fingers were essential for any dexterous nail movement. Nail arts distributed weight and strength across one’s grip in diverse manners, but the last two fingers were the power behind most if not all of them. Now, all their hand could do was to grip their once great nail as if it was an elder’s walking stick, and with any strength they had left, pull themselves from the floor, finding that same weakness shared by their legs, by their shins and barbed feet. Their head was too heavy for their body and now it weighted just too much on a lithe, arched neck. Nonetheless, as they managed to stand, they turned themselves to the path from which they came. The Ancient Basin beyond held a secret in its depths. A place their father had sealed back in the day. They wondered if those seals still held.

_“Good.”_ They didn’t share their sibling’s excitement, nor their hope when they saw the Hollow Knight stand. But nonetheless did it comfort their heart in the slightest bit to see something good spark in the little Ghost of Hallownest. Little only in sight, but every inch a devastating knight, loyal to a righteous cause, to their morals and a few names; a being that lived vividly every inch of their journey, a play of glory and triumph, lived and performed in a vessel’s own manner. _“We will make it there in no time, but do let me know if you need to stop, alright?”_

To their question, the Hollow Knight nodded the slightest bit, wary of tipping their head too much. In this last journey of theirs, they were not holding back in the slightest their thoughts from eating them alive. There was a feeling of terminality to their walk now, nearing the Abyss as they were, with their body in such condition, the certainty hanged on the air like the dust their steps raised, there but not addressed; if their sibling was wrong, they hardly would make their way up from their birthplace. There was a saying in their Hallownest of old that would say that on the way down, all Gods would lend a hand. To fall was such an easy thing, and all things seemed to aid that. To a vessel, that was a solid reality - their black carapace weighted just enough to balance it all, albeit it being so unrealistically thin that by no means should they be able to raise that head of theirs, be it vessel young or old, of carapace sturdy or malleable.

As the saying went, the path down the Basin was slow, difficult at times, but every part of it a doable journey, as if the Higher Beings had crafted them as such, making any decent easier than any climb. They had transversed it so many times in their life before, to see it now wasn’t unlike gazing at a mirror, and dreading the sight. When they compared themselves to Hallownest, they meant exactly this Basin and what it became. For once, at a time that felt like ages ago and also only yesterday, these caverns were an orderly pathway below ground, with as many lanterns as needed to make the ancient stone reflect. Where stone had cracked with time and dirt grew, white figs, ferns and reeds had been planted, like the ones that decorated the Palace. Grown by their Lady’s music and care, they shared her ability to amplify light and shine even brighter, establishing a symbiosis with the lamps that littered the ruins, like the balance herself had with Hallownest’s king. 

Like this, ruins already old at that time could be kept free of dust, brightly reflecting lights on its polished, ancient pavement and columns. Aristocracy would cross this basin from the City of Tears and to Palace grounds, and the space in between was built to house every being who needed a place to sit from a journey too far. They could recall with uncanny ease how here was the beginning of every parade, and as such, folks gathered by great numbers, eager to catch a glimpse of Queen and King and the Great Five. Their names were known, sung by crowds. Banners held by Kingsmold were rays of light raptured by cloth, but somehow not brighter than the searing brand that flew at its centre, housed within a depiction of the King and his seal. 

It was always something vibrant to witness. How below high ceilings and between ancient pillars, there could be so much light and adoration. A pocket of the world where life ran rampant, as if the moment would be eternal. They always thought it beautiful, fantastical in the sense that they never took part of those, and knew better than to ever hope or earn for such. Nonetheless, it was a memory of light, bright and everlasting, that seemed nearly fake when compared to the Ancient Basin now. There were no lit lanterns to light up the path. Those that remained standing were either broken, or with stained glass, where at the bottom one could see pooling the body of lumaflies, long dead and molten. The cracks on stone began growing, and unlike the plan, the white plants did not take over those. They were eradicated in its entirety, as vines cascaded from the ceiling like drapes from a forgotten civilisation. From the ground below stone peeled from over thorned roots, sharp as blades, and black reeds creeped from between its cracks, like overgrown grass blades. Long and lithe, they stood pointing to the ceiling like nails threatening the very Kingdom above to dare make its descent.

The Void could be felt from here. They were attentive to detail and they had never seen anything like the plant life here. Nothing of Unn’s making nor nursed by their fair lady, that was for certain. Of a pitch black colour, light didn’t reflect in it like it did not reflect on their carapace. The Basin was abandoned and leaking Void upwards, a miracle that it hadn’t reached past the Waterways and into the city above. They wondered how could it do so, when the Pale King had sealed it so long ago? Wasn’t the seal enough to ward it off? If not, what future did Hornet hope for Hallownest if she was aware of this? Void poisoning was a real ailment and they had the distaste of seeing it happen to retainers and servants alike. Unlike the infection, there were no dreams to be had from such illness, no feeling of strength nor mutations. It gave the bearer a strange tiredness, a hopelessness unnamed. They felt their pains but that too soon faded.

The Void hollowed them from the inside, melting whatever they bore within shell, and then leaked out of their body. They died quickly. It was nearly merciful, even if so terrifying to behold. One case in plain sight was enough to make the bugs from the Palace to stand clear from them and any other construct of the Pale King. Void poisoning would be lethal if it leaked into the city above, where Hornet was gathering the survivors and trying to make sense of any leftover life. It would kill anything above, from the smallest beast to the greater being. Yet, ironically, these vines and thorns were anything but void of life, the opposite of what they would do to common bug. They were coarse, strong, and took over the Basin like some corrupt life form that even so, was a life form, and it was in its nature to survive and grow like just any other. 

Not unlike a vessel, they mused. Except those were thriving, their sibling was thriving, and themselves were anything but.

As they had assumed, the sealed gate to the Abyss was gone. They wondered for how long it had been left so, and how it had been done. The King’s Brand was the only known key to the seal placed on such stone, and those were not things to be circumvented with the strength of one’s arm or will. Nonetheless, it had been done, and the platform of gilded metal that entered the darkness beyond ended short into nothingness. The metal clicked below their feet, and their once great nail found anchorage in the many holes of the braided grid of the construction that stood over it all.

The massive well below beckoned. The platform they were on now stood apart in style from the stone that surrounded the well’s walls. This place had been built by massive bugs that preceded Hallownest by several eras. The stone was carved in that peculiar, braided manner, unlike the cobblestone on the Palace Grounds, mismatched and so entirely simple. Here the stone seemed to curl unto itself, creating mimics of ancient shells and ribbed spirals that coated the walls and made protruding platforms, spiralling along its walls towards it bottom. Like massive steps for some kind of gigantic being, lining the walls for it to climb down and reach the chasm and void sea beyond, as if it was some sort of massive tub for it to bathe on.

Most of it remained so. The platforms remained almost entirely whole, but the steps were of cruel height, and when one was missing, it offered a gap difficult to cross. For a bug of their height, it was an unkind climb down to the bottom. But in the endless darkness of the Abyss, darkness which they could somehow see through, it wasn't their journey down that they thought of. But rather their journey up, and if they would be able to do it. Their siblings, whom they knew littered the ground below like fallen platforms, like corpses carried by rain through gutters, like rejects, they hadn’t managed such. They had turned this well of a mysterious force into a tomb, like their own Temple of the Black Egg, and they could feel it now, that same suffocating, neutral, vacant darkness in these very walls. Both were composed of the same stone. 

The waking world was a realm of gritty, earthly darkness, one which they despised to face. And before them now stood what they understood to be the source of it all. The origin of their so very dreaded namesake.

_“I do not think I can make it back up.”_ They said, their head looking to the bottom of the well from over the edge of the singular metal platform. At their side, the Ghost of Hallownest peeked over too. There was no light here, yet the corridor behind seemed brighter in comparison. Facing the bottom, they could not make out their sibling’s eye sockets, only the top of their horns. They remained at their side in a heavy, uncharacteristic silence. They knew that too, perhaps had always known.

The Void was not the source of the darkness of this world, no, although it was the source of theirs. There was darkness in the heart of bugs, even those of the highest and brightest breeds. There was hatred and evil to brew misdeeds in all kinds, all beings, many of them coming from distances beyond Hallownest and the known barren wasteland that surrounded it. The world was dark, for it was its nature to be so. It's natural state was of never ending night, with light being the rare interference that challenged unkind thoughts, challenged unlife and challenged stasis and stagnation. Light was the spark in organic constructs, the birth of instinct, birth of purpose, birth of dream and life, opposed to nothingness. Life was the uncommon thing, the rarity, difficult to find in this barren world and wherever it was found, it was often a battlefield of settlers, all beings tarnished by the cruel and empty reality having to fight for a spot at any place safe and sustainable. Nighttime was the world that all bugs knew, and themselves weren't too different, although their own darkness had a different source, embedded upon stillbirth. 

They had never fed too much the thought of that gloomy origin. It was not a tram of thought vastly encouraged, and their nature was a strange secret, kept by the highest courts and never mentioned by well-mannered beings. It was both what made their existence worth anything, it was the hard bargain the Pale King struck, but it was also their shame. It was something they had been given a white cloak to hide, and told to don't meet many glances so the hollowness of their eyes would pass unnoticed. This darkness was the one recollection they pushed away successfully, and in a world with lights so bright and intense in their life, they easily scared off the dark within themselves so it was nothing but a thin linen coating the groundwork of what they were. Everything was built upon it, but they paid little mind to dirt.

It was not and had never been a comfortable thought. There was nothing in there, no comfort, but also no suffering. The endless stasis this place produced had only been bothered when a light shone atop of it, strange and irritating to their nature and so many took it as their cue to sink back into the bottomless well, while others met that light with something akin to what themselves had in their heart. An aspiration. Curiosity. A kind of allure. It disrupted their stasis and as such, anything uncommon was to be investigated. This brand of darkness was a rather pure thing, it had no ill thought. It was entirely vacant of anything, up to the moment they had turned their eyes up and saw light. It had been the birth of the first thing: curiosity, earning, adoration.

They had been swift to make their way to it, but they hadn't thought themselves the first. Apparently, they were. The first and the last to discover that this light wasn't an it, but rather, him. A being, unlike any other and who beckoned them to follow. And they did. Thus began their unlife, unnatural, a shade in a world of light, with enough paleness to their shell to disrupt the endless peace of the black within. Never had they been either thing again. Neither peaceful, empty void, nor pale and accepted by the bright world above. They couldn’t thrive when the lights were the beacon of Hallownest, shining at their brightest, in full blown war. In their absence, they couldn’t thrive either, not like their sibling and the reeds beyond, for they missed the lights that nurtured them so. They were the white ferns, bound to be extinguished.

Stasis continued for those at the Void. With the light no longer bothering with visits, so the shades like them should have no reason to embody shell and attempt to make their way up. That had been so, at least until they had called. That was what their sibling told them, at least. The only time they managed to reach them through that shared Void within them all, the same void they used now to speak with the Ghost of Hallownest, it had been when the Radiance shattered through their shell and mind. When she broke free from seals and from them. It was her cry, resonating through their voidhearted bond, that budged the shades from their stasis and turned their soul-lit eyes up once again, towards a light they could not see but knew she was there, taunting the Void while riding their body, adding intimacy to the offense. It was what lured their sibling to them. 

Only twice the endless night and the timelessness of the Abyss was bothered by lights. One luring up, another downright a challenge and offense. Twice did the shades stir, each to their own, and once, they joined at their sibling's call, and swallowed the offender that now was no more, gone entirely within the never-ending night. And now, they did not know what awaited them at the bottom of that well. They accepted that feeling of terminality within their heart, and the awareness they perhaps wouldn’t make it back. They climbed down the platforms slowly, carefully, while their sibling leaped each step with a shuffle of wings and far more disregard for the ground they landed. The Hollow Knight, however, had become strangely acquaintanced to the flooring as of late, and was mindful of where they stepped.

Their feet became even more careful when the braided stone of the well, sculptured ages ago by enormous bugs that preceded Hallownest, gave place to shell. They tried to be delicate when they walked over them, even more with the places they chose to support the tip of their once great nail, but even then the shells rattled and creaked under their weight, the most damaged surely breaking further under their feet. This well had been their bassinet, an unassisted stillbirth, where nothing alive crawled out of the eggs drowned at the void lake. They wondered now if any of their siblings had ever lived, ever taken a breath in an organic body free of shade, for themselves had not. They had no memory of such, of any life and struggle they might have gone through as they drowned in ink within the egg they shared.

The shells their feet were crushing felt nothing, but the Hollow Knight did, as they heard their cracking tremble something within their own heart, stir with more violence the void within themselves, like a closed jar being violently shaken. It was a sound they had nearly forgotten, the repetitive cracking of their siblings as they fell around them, sharing the Hollow Knight’s desire to meet the light above but slipping along the way. They were all so small, they thought now. So diminutive, and taking their first steps, the balance of their heavy heads on top of their malleable bodies was something difficult to achieve. To leap was a task, and to achieve that climb, a miracle. Even now, looking up, they wondered how they ever did that. They weren’t as skillful as the Ghost of Hallownest was today, not even close. Back then, they hadn’t looked down to see the landing of their siblings. 

They wondered if they resented them for it. For being the first, for being the one that made it out while they had not. The thought of it festered, like the infection that beat like a living heart within their chest, at the pace of each step they took, and weighted like the drag of chains behind them. The darkness and the silence of the well was deafening, as well the emptiness of answers. The great chasm where the shells were deposited lacked expressively any presence, any pair of eyes be them empty eye sockets, mounted in a wandering shell, or be it the discrete gleam of a soul, faint but spotting the head of a hovering shade. There was nothing moving in this Abyss. None of their siblings, none of the shells but theirs. Nothing moved but them, who soon stepped from shell to path carved in stone, leading towards a second large space within this well, one that held a deep and very still sea, black like ink and coated with the light that poured from above, from a lighthouse of newer stone.

The construct was different from the rest like the first platform, newer but strongly built. It had been the Pale King’s very own commission, where many lives had been lost to make it, but it was but one minor cost in his greater plan. Above, glass and mirrors channeled a light that coated the lake but did not make it clear. The chasm before it used to be too filed with the Void, but eventually it was soaked by egg and shell.

The lighthouse gleamed as something oppressive and forlorn above the black sea that stretched itself from wall to wall of this well, not a single wave to it, no ripples at the edge of the braided stone that composed its shores at the feet of the lighthouse’s tower. For a moment, the coat of light that the building pushed over the lake, like a suffocating blanket, made them think of their mother. A reminder, they supposed, that light was not kind to the void nor to that half of them, even if they did share a kinship with such lights. Light was unkind to them, and like the White Lady’s words to the vessel she once cradled, that pale glow in all its gentleness looked like an oppressive weight on the lake’s surface, a weight turning it into a smoky mirror. 

A mirror that gave no reflection, not even to the light above. It was just coated with this strange reflection, as if light was a kind of oil poured over the black waters, keeping it tainted and held in place below. They knew not how to feel about it, be it the black lake or the well or the entirety of the Abyss and what it meant to them. Or rather, what it didn’t mean to them. They knew their thoughts towards their father, their mother, their sibling and sister. Towards the Knights, towards Hallownest. Sometimes a thought or an emotion surprised, showed a new face of itself like a gambling shell, sporting a new number when tossed. But even then, they knew how to feel about them.

About the Abyss however, they did not. They seemed to realise only then that they didn’t know exactly what they were doing here - their sibling had simply told them that they were coming here, to this place they did not think of but harboured two vague, mismatched thoughts towards, hope and disappointment, and they hadn’t been in the condition to question, even less think of the destination. Their sibling had the intention to help them, physically at least. Had mentioned it at the first time in the hot spring, calling here a place where hopefully they could mend their shell. ‘Their best bet’ was the manner in which they had phrased their suggestion, as if not even themselves knew how much could this visit truly help.

The Ghost of Hallownest had never been clear about any of it, nor what place this was. They held the knowledge of this place as not only one born here, but as one that returned, explored, spent time here. They placed so much trust in their sibling, that pedestal the Nightmare King accused them of earning to put just about anyone in, that they hadn’t bothered to suspect their sibling was withholding information and intentions from them, concealing such in frequencies much lower than what the Hollow Knight could grasp. To fool them wasn’t an impossible task, rather the opposite. But nonetheless did they see their sibling’s current silence now in another light.

They met their only seeing eye, and in those the Hollow Knight could see nothing. They heard nothing, either, no impression of intention, no fleeting thought. The restlessness of their sibling, who seemed to be always earning to be on the move, had died entirely at the shore of this umbral lake, of void and coat of light, one poisoning the other and yet caught at a stalemate. Here, they weren’t restless, but perfectly still. The name of this emotion in themselves was sonder; the sudden awareness that to every thought themselves had, every emotion, every dilemma and complexity and challenge, their sibling must have their own, perhaps similar, perhaps entirely different, and that themselves would never know. They weren’t here to heal them, not entirely at least. There was more to their urgency, a world beyond what they had grasped.

They could never bring to words all that themselves went through, and even if they could, they didn’t think they could make anyone understand the things they felt, nor as they saw it. Similarly, their sibling was a mystery of their own merit, gloriously alive and yet, quizzical and impossible to read. When they spoke, the intonation was plain, as still as the lake beyond. _“Do you trust me?”_

Did they? The Hollow Knight pained as they questioned themselves on that. Did they trust their sibling’s intention, when their sibling was hiding things from them? Thoughts, emotions, those were the most harmless of secrets they kept, but they weren’t all. They played the game of the Higher Beings, and hid other intentions and secret purposes. There was more to this visit, and their sibling knew what but hadn’t voiced it to the Hollow Knight. Not a liar, but a dutiful omission, like the others they had done before it, that perhaps if the Hollow Knight hadn’t been so lost in their own head, their own thoughts, they maybe would have seen signs. But they hadn’t. 

The answer wasn’t difficult to find. But it did come with bittersweetness, with a sinking feeling to their heart. It was another cuirass being placed on their shoulders, and themselves trusting that it was with the best intentions that one would hammer a nail through metal and carapace. It was for their best that they had made it here. For their best that they were tied. And like the Temple of the Black Egg, for their best that they were chained and sealed, even if once inside, they weren’t granted a way out anymore, the question being made once they couldn’t go back anymore. Or up, in this case. _“I do.”_

They did, but they feared it. They felt the anxiousness dawning in them as they feared the rebirth of a cycle wherein they placed trust and hope and were rewarded with nothing but the awareness it was their duty to endure it. They could have said something against it, they supposed. But perhaps they had done what Grimm had warned them not to, and put their sibling in a place of blind trust, and whatever they did, whatever they asked out of them, they weren’t sure they had it in themselves to ever deny. The Ghost of Hallownest wasn’t only their sibling who watched their damaged carcass for days, scouted through this fading kingdom and kept up with it. They too were the sibling who went unthinkable lengths to answer the Radiance’s call, and when everything signalled for a simple ending, all signs pointing for the Temple of the Black Egg and the predictable result, they were the sibling that turned on their heel and found another way. 

Their voidhearted sibling, who had their father’s brand discreetly etched on their shell and a heart as black as the lake beyond, and those things did not make them arrogant nor empty hearted, but rather the very opposite. Strangely heartful, and unpredictably glorious. The Hollow Knight too was composed of one trait that betrayed logic - from a being that had been led for so long and hurt by it so many times, still surprised them their own capability to trust, completely and entirely, and find nothing being held back, not even for their own safety. When their sibling began walking into the lake, each step making it progressively deeper until only their shell stood above the water, they followed.

Their great nail was placed down on the shore along their sibling’s, and the tip of their feet touched the black waters, disrupting the linen of light on its surface that tainted ink like oil. But it didn’t feel like either. It was heavier than water, but not as much as the infection. It didn’t feel viscous, not cold nor warm. It simply didn’t feel. They didn’t feel it as they walked, joining their sibling and causing ripples on the surface that quickly died out, the sound of water sloshing the only noise in this well, noise that didn’t echo, as if it too was caught on the lake’s surface and sank, being kept from bouncing out in its cage of light. 

Their sibling’s hand gestured for them to move down, which they did. They were careful with the steps they took, taking on one knee, then lowering themselves to sit down on the shallow water. They could feel the rapid decline at the bottom, it got deep quickly, and the stones were uneven. Their feet felt little, but they felt ribbed stone along the carapace of their legs, as well as a horn pointed upwards below their heel, easily budging should they push. There were shells of their siblings even here, this place was as much stone as it was corpses. Their sibling walked over, making it behind them. Below their stained and aged cloak, one could see the protruding plates of their carapace along their back, ribbed where they broke, damage done by nails lodged an entire age ago in them, and that she bled and ate through. 

Their broken and malformed body seemed sharp and hostile in comparison to the soft, malleable hand that rested on their clothed shoulder. The silence of the well was deafening, but even then, they didn’t have it in them to voice anything. Not to stop their sibling and whatever intentions they harboured for them. They were tired of thinking for now, and the Nightmare King’s words were like a poison they repeated in their head, like the curse of foretelling - that being knew a detail of what would happen, saw more than the Hollow Knight did, and at every step they sought for signs to interpret the whole future they had only but been hinted at. In such a manner, they compared his words to their actions, to the world around them, tried to make sense of the puzzle ahead. But they were no Wyrm, however. They made no sense of those words, and possibly would never make. Those words offered no guidance nor comfort now. 

_“Lean back. Do not fear, I will be with you.”_ Their sibling spoke, all but static and even intonation, as if they harboured all of the world behind those words. So much in fact, that the ending result was alien aloofness. Concern, glee, wariness, everything entangled in such a manner that they could not pinpoint an emotion in that perfectly still void of theirs. Within themselves, however, they could feel many ripples. Fears, in their majority. An animal’s distress and an aristocrat’s anxiety. Feelings they held on to the best of their abilities, as they put their arm back behind themselves. They felt the weight of their cloak that now had soaked in the black water and seemed weightless if they stood still, heavy if they tried to move up.

Slowly, they leaned their head back, feeling the hands of their sibling at the back of it and helping their shell down. Their only seeing eye stared at the merciless beam of the lighthouse as they lowered themselves, the ceiling of the chasm greeting their sight, and soon, they submerged. Below, no light made it through. There was a weightlessness on being entirely submerged, their head sinking to the shallow bottom as their eye sockets filled with the black water, a couple bubbles escaping it through the crack before they were entirely laid within the lake, below the encasing of light, below Hallownest and where none but their kind could reach.

Their first thought was that this that they were looking at was their ultimate tomb. Their ultimate tomb and themselves below, a large broken shell, sunken at the bottom.

Something so simple, so _fragile_ , and yet all that was recognised as the Hollow Knight was tied to that broken organic piece, now discarded below them. They looked down at their mangled body and broken shell and could only think, for that simple, empty moment, that this thing they inhabited was truly a tomb, their eternal prison, more than any other, and yet even now they were drawn back to it, even if it was so hideously disfigured and dysfunctional. Drawn to it not by expectation nor by duty, but they simply were. As if in a sea of them, they could tell which one was theirs with their eyes closed. They were that thing. Not only and just that thing, but they were it. 

Their second thought was that they weren’t at the surface, nor anywhere for that matter.

There was no lake, and there was no surface. They felt nothing, the feeling of complete submersion existing even now. But they were not in the lake, they were, in fact, the lake, the tar that composed it. This was no place, with no floors and no weights. Not concept of above, nor below. A place with no dreams, where no light disrupted anymore, where no sound made it through, and despite the lack of light, they could see themselves. Their shell, broken, somewhere below only if they were looking for it, above countless others. They could see their arms, malleable and mist-like, and could see where their form ended, just a little below their shoulders, and from there on their shade dismissed into wisp and tendrils, caressing the equally dark surroundings in its weightlessness.

This was no dream. This was their end, the true and only end for their kind, made of God and Void and where their physical bodies weren’t all that they were, nor the tar was. Soul of Pale Being, giving life to something that had no life on its own, could only be animated through focus and clever workmanship but only to a certain degree. This was their endless limbo - not dead, for they never truly lived, but weren’t encased in a body either, nor were they returned to nothingness just yet. Not unlife, nor nonexistence. Somewhere between. A death.

Around them, many eyes lit up. Like when they gathered, through the Godseeker’s attunement and they had thought themselves dreaming, but the Ghost of Hallownest explained it hadn’t been the case. The dots of soul that filled the dark, lining the emptiness, they were their siblings, all of them, staring at them with their soul-lit eyes, only discernible for the shape of their horns and shades. Their sibling, the Ghost of Hallownest, was among them, in the first row, watching with equal emptiness, but of strong, coarse shade.

Their end was such an odd thing. They had wondered how it would happen. They had spent plenty of time lately thinking how it would be like to simply melt away into the Void and if they would find it a blessing to take that step beyond, and simply _not be_. Achieve that, at the very least. It was their woe, after all. If their shade faded away, then that was the only thing they could be in its entirety. Not a Pure Vessel, not a well-balanced in between, not their father’s expectations, nor his dreams. They couldn’t achieve any of these things, besides simply being non-existent. It was tempting, and they thought of it often, but they never thought it would come in this manner.

No accident, nor battle. It wasn’t through their sleep either, but rather was something induced, something they had actively walked into, even if without knowing. It felt… Plain. Weak. It was with a great deal of despairing irony that they thought of the Nightmare King’s words and how he would have found this ending to their play as something so inherently boring and anticlimactic, not worthy of the crowd they had gathered. 

When they looked to their siblings again, only one stood. Massive serpentine body laced around this vague world, faded and existing, bracing on walls that did not exist, as if it was coiling themselves within a room and boundaries only itself could see. Something too great perhaps for the casing of light that lathed the surface. Several arms, eight eyes, and the most intricate assortment of horns, all sharing of this same nature as themselves did.

They knew what this was, because they _were_ this thing. Part of it, in a way, the last piece to make it whole, but it was no less powerful without the Hollow Knight in them. Yet they were part of that being, a being that once existed through the focus of an ancient breed that used to worship it, but now, it existed held together by the souls of many Pale Beings, stillborn and childlike, held together by a single heart and determination from one that had seen the world above, and could give them purpose to one goal, and one goal only.

This was the one that braided the stones above. This was the power that could swallow Soul and Essence, challenge what the world knew as the most powerful beings to live. Beings who were blessed with so much freedom, so much thought, endless dilemmas and morals to build and break, ephemeral in their doings like the lives they created, handled and ended. Their doings, amazing as they were, were unnatural to the world. The endless night was the true law and nature, and as such, it was unburned by such woes. Idleness did not fight to keep itself so, it was life and light that fought to make a room for themselves in the world. Soul and light were what coerced the Void into doing anything, a power naturally still, enslaved by turbulence.

The Wyrmchildren within perhaps were the kindest influence to give the void a shape, focus and thought. They had been part of this entity, and beings that never lived had little to think of, little to feel, little to want. In that strange silence, only two thoughts were fully embodied, two hearts that beat strongly for the woes of the world above, but it was not the Hollow Knight’s call on what to do. Among million others, the Ghost of Hallownest’s heart was a beacon to focus one’s soul to. When it beat, they all felt the rhythm. Their synchrony was willing, a consensus, that chose to heed by one’s instructions so they could play their soundless orchestra, at the waiver of their sibling’s hand, the maestro before countless musicians, who for once, agreed it was time to play.

And the Lord of Shades played now. Its unity was not forced, but rather an agreement of every single soul within, children of Root and Wyrm, Pale Souls, who in their millions mustn’t have a dozen who saw the world above. They were the same, individually. Horns and predispositions were decided solely by odds, before stillbirth, but personality, skills and vocations, that was upbringing that groomed and nurtured. A thousand like themselves must exist in the Lord of Shades. A thousand like the Ghost of Hallownest. A thousand better than the two of them together. Yet, the two of them would always be the most developed, the oldest, simply because they had lived. The orchestra was gathered and they knew that within all of that, the maestro of that theatre had saved a spot for them. A prized soloist for as long as they might have been, there was a place carved for them at that heart, to give voice in a devastating cry all that they had never managed to utter, all the songs they hoped to play but could not.

**Stolen sibling.** **Cry no more.**

**Born loving a light. Different. Little shade to command, of great shell and great soul.**

Cry no more. They wished that they would heed by those words that came from nowhere, but also from everywhere. When it sounded, they knew those words were a crafted melody that they could hear the harmony in - it was not the Ghost of Hallownest who spoke to them, but rather them all. The band played the words they chose, picked a song from their voidhearted’s sibling's own mind, from all those they knew, and chose to perform it for them. This spoke for them all, for this was all.

Their Sibling, in all its unanimity and greatness, had such simple prayers for them. Not any visible resentment, no emotion but a slight somberness on tone. As if when they formed, the first note they all shared was a mercy towards the sibling they called stolen. They had heard them cry, and had answered. There was nothing else festering in that crowd. No hate, no mistrust. No ill thought, nor goal. In its timelessness, the Lord of Shades was a being of only and solely the current moment. And the Hollow Knight envied such a thing. Free of recollections, free of memories and light. Free of concerns for what would come and what had been. In that orchestra, they would cry no more.

**Return home.**

_Not yet._

To know that this was what awaited them was an immense comfort, but also riddled them with such an immense sadness to counter. Was this all they truly had to look forward to? Was the only time they would get to be heard happen in this orchestra that only their kin would hear? They weren’t taking this for granted, far from it, but at the same time, their soul-lit eyes found themselves searching for their shell again. 

To be born loving a light was a curse. The thing that kept stealing them at the last moment from everything whole, everything complete. Loving a light, earning more of that uncertain life of theirs, it was what had them walking up to this moment. Seeking more of those things they had seen, the things that nurtured them, in a way or another… It was their greatest curse, whisking them from anything good to throw them every time at the arms of harm, of unkindness. All that they hated was in that existence embodied and terrible unlife, but also all the things they loved.

What stood before them was glorious. Surely better than anything they had ever lived, ever dreamt or hoped. Kinship, ease, and to simply be what they were. Yet, all they could think of was whether or not this fate would remain pending if they asked, if this could be the only certainty at the end of it all. If so, then the world of the living would be a little less frightening to transverse, and perhaps, only perhaps, they could find a bit of strength in themselves to walk a few more days. 

**We want you well. We wonder. Could ever love a light as you do?**

They hadn’t expected such words from the Lord of Shades. From their sibling, who had seen all of Hallownest, of what their father created and she destroyed, from them they wouldn’t have found those words uncommon. But it did not come from that sibling, but rather the sum of all of them. It wasn’t the Ghost of Hallownest’s wonder, but rather all of theirs. Their Sibling, whole and primal, thought of them. Vessels that had never seen the world above, never met anything besides the light of a lighthouse, had seen the outside once when they formed within her realm.

Only a few moments, that had been. A frenzied cry in unison. Quick but violent. The world wasn’t those few instants - it was much more. The world wasn’t just the love and hate and their mix that the Hollow Knight had poured in their part of their song, in their instrument. The world was much more. Boredom and surprise, suspense and idleness, tenderness and wit. So much more that they could spend another lifetime trying to explain, several trying to perform, and they wouldn’t scratch the surface.

Yet, that instant seemed to have been enough, and only barely enough, to instill such a thought in so many vessels. Not a feeling. They might feel no love for that world above, nor hate, only their impressions of such. But they heard their siblings’ cry, the two oldest, and when they mimicked the noise, through sympathy they learned something more. A question. A wonder, discrete and small, yet that had remained even after the Radiance was no more. In a manner, they had instilled a small thought upon such a mass, like it had been done to themselves, the moment they raised their eyes to light.

What their father wouldn’t have given to see what he had unintentionally created. Something glorious, but that he wouldn’t be able to love or see the beauty in. Not like the Hollow Knight saw. And as they saw, they also felt it strangling them. They had handed that part of them so much silence, so little thought. That part of them that they rejected, but it had rejected them not. They regretted it, but they could do better. 

**We love our Hallowed sibling. Maybe we could love a light too.**

They couldn't say the same, not in any honest manner, and it shamed them. But they could, that much they knew. They could find no love in themselves for the never ending night, for the world with an absence of mind, thought and light, for it's rare presence was what made life and it was what they had grown to love of it, already acquaintances with the opposite. They could not love the darkness in them that wasn't enough, their diminutive shade, so small that it stretched thin to fit all of their body, and couldn't hold on that emptiness even if that was their only purpose. They could not love the concept of a dead orchestra that played only for itself. But they could accept that part of them enough, and solely because it was part of them too. They could love them, their siblings, the little Pale Beings that dotted the endless night, little lights in their own manner. They could love them and love to play with them, even in such a place. They had not done so before, but they could love them.

_I am sorry. I have not returned the feeling._

**Do not be.**

They were undeserving of so much care and so much thought. Undeserving of the mercy their siblings showed them, the spot they had saved for them by the heart of their orchestra, the bandstand of their arcade. They would join that, when it was time. There was no fear of that end now, no fear of such outcome. But yet, they were not deserving. That emotion alone made them wish to delay that a little bit. They might still have a few more days left on their broken shell. A bit longer in this soloist career of theirs, doomed to fail. But perhaps just enough time to rest their own complex, difficult soul, and permit them to be worthy, a slightest bit at least, of all that their siblings did for them. All that the Ghost of Hallownest did for them.

It was in their unredeemable nature after all. To love, and to earn to fulfill. One sibling of theirs still wandered the world above. It was enough of a tiny speck of light for them to wish to live on, a bit longer if they could. For they were, after all, something between a bastard, a Knight and their father’s child, and they had only the worst of such things. One of these things, learnt straight from their father, as many things were, was their unwavering, impossible pride. Self-centered to a fault. If they could perhaps find a way to join their siblings with a raised head and a lighter heart, they would. But not with an apology, caught in their metaphorical lip.

_The feud of our progenitors is not inherited. I do not hate you. Maybe I have time to show I can love too._

**We will always be here.**

They couldn’t hold that against their Sibling for sounding so strangely confused yet conformed with their words. For a being mostly composed of stillborns, there must be a plethora of minds trying to follow and understand these interpretations, as many as there were souls in there who had seen the world above and developed enough of a critical thought for such. The Lord of Shades was trying to make sense of them, and failing. Perhaps even for the Ghost of Hallownest, the Hollow Knight was a mystery. For themselves, they were a mystery, but at each moment less so. There was a tale, spun by wandering musicians and court poets, that spoke of the clarity of the last moment. Wherein all things became clearer as death knocked on the door, and the most daring of the Knights would jest with such, claiming that it was what made them so wise.

The Hollow Knight had always liked poetry. They believed there was an enlightenment on music, a particularity of equally enlightened bugs whom could make better sense of what they thought and felt. Poetry was no different, albeit often more discrete. Wordsmithing but an art to convey so much in so little, it tended to hide wisdoms among rhymes or prose, and in a pattern somehow frame all from the soul of the poet. It was the heart’s ailments that they poured into the words chosen, and a mindset that organised and arranged words that sought to most accurately convey what they felt. For it was this - either by music or voice - this was the most basic and complex manner one’s own experience of the world could be known. As such, a vessel lacked all. A voice to sing or speak. But yet, they admired such a thing, envied all those who could do either thing.

They believed there was truth to the court poet’s saying. So much had happened since they stepped out of the Temple of the Black Egg. This post-mortem of theirs was stretching itself, with gritty suffering and discovery both. They couldn’t regret it, no; they had been willing to die when she did it within their dreams. They wouldn’t have mourned to be gone when their duty was over. It would have been an honourable end and a fitting one. But they wouldn’t have known all they did now. They wouldn’t have been given this time to mourn their father, in measures greater than any other ever did. They wouldn’t have met their sibling, who would have continued to roam the world without ever meeting them. So much they had lived, in so little time.

The ordeal was terrible, yet it was all they had before the inevitable end. They could endure a few more nights, spun unto one another, endless and unmeasured, before they faded into something darker. 

**Be well, Hallow sibling.**

They couldn’t make such a promise. There was no wellness awaiting in the world, that much they knew. Nonetheless, it was the world they knew. The home that the half they welcomed and had been raised by had created and fought over. And it was a destroyed, harmful home - one that had never entirely welcomed them, one where they knew love, but only the crumbs of it, never handed entirely towards themselves until now. It was that world that taught them all arts, that taught them to live, even if the plan was to make them a Hollow Knight and they were anything but one. 

As whatever they were, part bastard, part Knight, part unloved Prince, part jailer, entirely a soloist, it was above where they wanted to be. Unbelonging and pained, exhausted and shamed, above was the home that built them to destroy them, yet, it still was the one they hoped to be in as long as they could. Their Hallownest of old was gone anywhere but in their heart, and sitting by its last moments, it was where they wanted to be. May them both perish together, crawling along, seeking solutions they wouldn’t find while so gravely wounded. 

Their sister understood it best, they supposed. There was nothing else to live but to endure. And they would, they supposed. Meet their end with more tenacity than their father had - with a raised head, proud and mighty, even if there weren't any pauldrons to catch like bowls the lumafly lights, and the crack of their shell was but an impossible tarnish on their spotlessness. They could bid their time and do something with it, before making their proud, bright way towards their second sarcophagus, like they had done to the first. This time, it would be with a heavier heart but a lighter mind. Nothing else to fulfill in this meantime but whatever they chose to pursue. 

And what would they pursue if not a light? They did not know. 

They would find something, perhaps. In between following their sibling for as long as they could and aiding Hornet in her impossible ordeal, they could try and find something. Something perhaps that only themselves could do, something to bring the slightest fulfillment before their dusk. Something for them to crawl towards, pursue and fail. If all of Hallownest was in such a task, themselves, insisting on living through its end, then so would they. Abandoned, both, but together at their last hour. There was nowhere else they would rather be, they supposed, than where hope went to die. 

Below the cover of a light’s downpour, the black lake was painful still, not the slightest ripple or wave bothering its surface. Two entire worlds were divided in that unbreakable tension at its surface - light would never touch the world below, and the Void would never stretch a tendril upwards towards light. The two opposites would never negotiate on their natures, a feud older than mind, older than Wyrm and Hallownest. It would never change.

Yet, their horns broke through the surface as if it was any kind of water. The light bathed and wiped the Void off their shell, chasing it back to its great cage, but it burned them not. The world below wasn’t closed to them, nor was the world above. The vessels were an impossibility in the shape of a being, even when one like them was so strongly leaning towards one of their halves. Like horns, they supposed there wasn’t just any identical copy. They were simply uniquely cursed like this. Or, as their Sibling had called them, blessed in such a manner. 

They tilted their head down, pouring the excess void off their eye sockets, permitting the sight of the lighthouse to become clear above them. The glass dome above its stone tower was undistinguishable, none of the gilded metal that held the glass panels together could be picked apart, offering no rims or opposition to the light it channeled below. The downpour of light was a seamless stream, bathing them with the weight of drapes. Between them, vessel and light, the dust of the massive well played on their sight, taking flight before their eye, unhurried and suspended in this stasis that wouldn’t see an end anytime soon. At the crib of night, their blackened carapace remained mostly beneath the blanket of light, comfortable in the cradle of void, but their shell… They cherished to feel light press against it once again.

The void wouldn’t harm them, it would offer this endless and numb comfort forevermore. But it was no life, they thought. There was no life without feeling that weight of the light against their pale shell, caressing the plain surface, rinsing off the blackness back into the crack they could still feel. The Abyss couldn’t heal their shell, they knew. Had always known, perhaps. It was not its domain, it was not of its making. It was no stone for it to braid. The one that could heal it was long gone. 

But what the Void could heal, it had. Hadn’t reformed their arm, nor restored their bent and cracked carapace to what it once was, but they could feel its weight in themselves. Its strength as well. Where nails had dug in to hold pauldrons, the holes remained, a couple large enough to fit a finger, but they felt sturdy when they reached to touch. They felt a quietness, a peace within that shade of theirs. It was not entirely quiet and conformed, they weren’t complete without him, but it had found something to grip on perhaps. Something small and tiny to ground itself on. A bit more of quietness to what wouldn’t ever rest entirely. 

_“I had to bring you here, you see.”_ The silence of their mind was broken by the being that rippled the lake next to them. They tilted their head to look at them. With only their shell above the surface, the Ghost of Hallownest seemed no different from the many shells discarded on the chasm beyond. But it was not only to their image that they attuned their attachment, no. They could tell their sibling from a crowd. It was their soul that sung to theirs, a voice in that shared void that couldn’t be mistaken by any other, even if in the millions, they sounded all so similar. Each of them was unique, but their sibling even more so. 

They hesitated not to make their way over, their feet under the black sea stepping on the Hollow Knight’s folded legs, raising themselves up a little more from the surface as they brought themselves against them. Their malleable arms, soft and inconsistent, were unreasonably short for the size of the shell they carried. Nonetheless, they could feel it, arms reaching around the Hollow Knight to hug their half-eaten chest through the stiff cloak, now soaked in black. Their shell made a muffled sound against the carapace of their shoulder. They had only one arm to return the gesture, but they did so wholly. _“I suppose these things weren’t up for only me to say. I wouldn’t know what words to choose, and I did try to choose them.”_

_“I am thankful that you brought me here.”_ They spoke, their fingers catching on their sibling’s soaked mothwing cloak, holding the minimal body against their own, they let their shell turn their eye’s attention from the light so to fit the rim of their head against their sibling’s own, tucking them further against themselves. So small, they felt like they could wrap their limbs thrice around them, yet it was not the Ghost of Hallownest that was being embraced, no. Wordsmithing was an art their sibling wasn’t an artist of, and even if they were, it was a treacherous tool. It liked to betray their best when they needed it the most. It had been wise to let all of them have a say in their choosing. _“It has fixed what I knew not to be broken. I expected much less, although hoped for more.”_

Their words were not out of cruelty or unkindness. This had been necessary, and they hadn’t even remotely known so. When their sibling criticised them for refusing to think much of that void they shared, and in a stretch, denying them all, they had barely given them much thought. At that hot spring, they were far more concerned with their shell. In part, still would be if they weren’t giving up on it by now. Perhaps they ought to only cover it and the eye that saw no more, try to tie their horns together in hopes it would prevent their shell from simply falling off someday. Perhaps a smith could nail cuffs to hold them together. It might do more for their shell than anything else.

For there was no Higher Being of Pale soul and light to mend it for them, not anymore. There wouldn’t be, and they knew as much. But no less important was it to bathe their shade under this very lake. No less important it had been to fill their caparace once again with void, liquid which they could feel weighting their limbs once again, filling it with strength both natural and unnatural. It couldn’t give back what they lost, but it was here, for them. That was the true purpose of this visit, and their sibling concealment of it was well-intentioned. Their siblings didn’t have as much to give as a light, but they wanted to give their own blessing anyway, and it was more than what themselves had to give them. It was more than what they had ever given them. To regret it wasn’t enough, nothing they ever did could remedy that past. But if they could make something right… They would. If it crossed their path, they would answer the call.

There was no call however. For nothing, not in this fading Kingdom. No hurry, no pressing time. No threatening dawn. Only the eternity of this stasis, and they took this moment’s respite to breathe it. Hold them. They might be seeking lights still, but when it was night, love or hate it, they should appreciate it for the moment it granted them to rest. _“What now?”_

When they asked the Ghost of Hallownest such, they knew the other understood what they meant. Their sibling wasn’t attached to the Hallownest of old, they liked a few people, people who knew nothing of them and regarded them with none of the respect they deserved, nonetheless, they did like them. Perhaps they would like to help them and give Hallownest some aid. Perhaps it was for Hornet and her alone that they would make the effort, for she was not of this impossible composition that they were built as, but still one of their own. If each other were a mystery for them, she was even a greater one, one entirely of the world above and the gritty, rawness of the beasts and bugs that littered the world beyond. For her, there was no comfort in permitting end, both day and night could be hostile, but both versions of the world were one she was made to endure. If for her it was important to try, not only stretch Hallownest's post mortem but seek its survival, maybe it was for their sibling too.

_"I was hoping you would know."_ The Ghost of Hallownest confessed, and they could only but bask in the shared loss. No, there wasn't much for them out there, no. But all these tiny things were what they had, after all. Their sibling moved back a little, a movement which themselves allowed, tilting their own massive head to meet the empty stare their sibling was giving them. _"If I focus, sometimes I can hear them. A word, or a comment, sometimes a will. I think that I should turn off the lighthouse on our way out. If only I could make the climb easier too. Maybe a couple siblings would like to see the place for themselves."_

It was such a strange thought. To imagine that they and the Ghost of Hallownest by just living only could inspire so much. Instill a desire, something they only discovered in themselves much later in life. Will and thought was the nature of Higher Beings, to possess and bestow upon their chosen kin, sometimes created, sometimes controlled. Without either, there was nothing else in bug but organic instinct, mindless but only alive enough to permit them to move. Little to no soul, in creatures close to empty. Light saw potential, and expanded such reaches. That was what Hornet could not replace in Hallownest, and it was why it was doomed to fall as it was, and return to the mindless burrow it had been before. No kingdom, that would be. These weren't weavers who through their weaving kept their minds kindled, nor mantids who through battle kept themselves strong willed. This was common bug. These were creatures who, in the law of the strongest, would be naught but a greater beast's meal. 

A light, regardless of which, granted that they were all at the same height. Strong beings and weak ones, both. The artist and the warrior. The seer and the challenger. It offered them all the equal chance to live, grow and thrive. That was not something Hornet could do when their minds began to wane. But who were they to tell her so? They simply wouldn't. May the weaver not be disappointed severely when her ordeal proves itself futile, nonetheless they would be there if they could. May she be enough of a Knight to move on better than themselves did, and empowered by her own Pale half and weaver other, find the means to continue. As much Princess as she was Knight, may she suffer but continue. There must be weavers left in Hallownest. With the light gone, only the Borderlands would remain; the Hive, Deepnest, the Mantises, the Funghi, and Greenpath. Maybe once she gave up on the Kingdom, she could wield her heritage and rebuild her own kin. The Daughter of Three Queens was entirely built to rule.

Themselves, particularly, were built to be destroyed. Maybe that wasn't the intention, a vessel was made to contain, but themselves particularly were bound to such miserable fate. They were progressively growing less worried about it. _"Before Watcher, Lurien was our architect. Perhaps at his tower there are still the projects and tablets on the functioning of the elevators he designed."_

Lurien was such a being. The standing example on why a free and higher mind in a safe kingdom was such a sacred thing. Behind his mask, the Watcher was but a small, unassuming bug. Of short hands and small stature. Of weak limbs, no claw or fang to give him the slightest of chance against the world. But some beings were just born different, they supposed. When Hallownest was instituted and the Pale King walked, Lurien thought. And he was grand at that. The mechanics of this world were a passion for him to uncover, his creativity wasn't bound by limit. He, who would be nothing in the wilderness beyond, here was granted all the means to feed his mind, his ideas, his thoughts. For that, his gratefulness stretched from side to side of Hallownest. An architecture built to fit the land the Wyrm chose. A city was raised, below a lake, and even as it began raining, the waterways came soon to turn the issue into the city's own gloomy charm. 

He built it all, gave it all. Not even the line between the realm of dreams and the waking world was difficult for him to uncover. He excelled at all things he proposed himself to do. Hallownest had lost much when they were sealed. The architect but one of such great losses. They supposed that if one thoroughly sought either his spire or the City Storerooms, they would find a spare lift and the manners to install it. _"And who would possibly install it, Hollow?"_

Their sibling's words were sharp, and it brought them to realise the issue. Elevators weren't light, and it still would require bugs to make it here, to the Abyss itself. Hornet was having trouble getting them to cooperate on their own survival, things such as hunting and sharing. There was no one who could be convinced to work on that elevator. Their suggestion, although hopeful and good willed, was impossible. Perhaps themselves could have carried such a construct, when they were in one piece. Now, their own carcass was weight enough.

That realisation aside, another took place soon after, taking root as their sibling's words sunk into the black lake, no sound reverberating in this massive well they were in. They had called them, yet their title felt strange to their hearing now, haunted by another so similar yet a world of difference. The one that braided the stone, the Void given goal, their massive, eight-eyed Sibling had called them Hallow. It mustn't be a mistake of the world, nor a slip of the thought. They had meant it, felt it genuinely within themselves to call them such. Call them _hallowed_ , and in the same sentence, call them loved, even if being that should mean they were such a terrible opposite to themselves, and the different could be so difficult to love.

There was truly no feud inherited. Their Sibling felt nothing ill towards them, despite it all. Despite the silence they had handed the Void, despite how even now, despite all the misery and woe, they still loved the lights that nurtured and wounded them all. From the two halves that composed them, they were almost entirely one, and only one. Nonetheless, the Lord of Shades was willing to love them, make room for them. Their blessed sibling, kin cursed by the light of Higher Beings. They hoarded that though and those words against their soul, tightly within their chest. If their Sibling could, then themselves could return the feeling. That was the very least. _"Hallow."_

They corrected, a quiet word, but that they supposed had as much meaning as when they took a knee before their father, and felt their own nail rest at each shoulder. At their accolade, they were named Hollow Knight, both things they were not, but that was their name given. There was power to names - it was a Queen's promise of upbringing, it was the weight of duty. Sometimes, it was simply the confirmation of what was. Either way, it was rarely chosen, but very frequently given. And the Hollow Knight supposed they could grow to accept their namesake, accept that broken darkness and hollowness in themselves, accept the Knight they weren't within themselves. But they were not either thing, not entirely. But they were _hallow_ , the discerning trait that made them stand apart from the unity of their Sibling; they were holy, the blessing of light being a curse to a being of the bottomless night.

_"Hallow."_ The Ghost of Hallownest repeated, after a while. Their intonation did not mistake that they understood it. Not the motive perhaps, but certainly the intention. A new title that they already fulfilled felt lighter on their shell already. Hallownest had been cursed and blessed by lights for so long, and so many times, yet now it was dying without them. Them and the Kingdom, both abandoned, shared a kinship they shared with no other being or place. They shared lights, shared an ailment now gone from their bowels, shared a fate of inevitable doom at a carnival's red play. Seemed fair that they too shared their namesake. 

This was just another accolade, performed by a ruler far less interventionist and concerned with the fate of Hallownest, not as much as it was concerned over theirs. From a King's Hollow Knight, to a Lord's Hallowed Sibling, they shed a title to carry another for the last few moments of their life. Like a baptism done at the pivot of battle, so regardless of the manner in which they died, they would find themselves honoured in mourning with that brand etched before the peak of battle descended upon them. They supposed it was not in them to simply shed with equal ease the memories of their father, their love for him, the expectations and standards they had upon themselves, things handed to them by King and Kingdom.

But they could shed a name. They couldn't move past their favoured light, would mourn and seek it forever, in their own bittersweet manner. They were not a Knight, to move onwards with kindled faith and valorous memories, stronger due to their trials. They could shed that expectation of themselves at least, along with that name. And they decided to. Even if abandoning it felt so terribly bitter. Their eyes met the cascading light of the lighthouse and they imagined what that would mean when all lights, even lumafly ones, couldn't reach them anymore. When they died, finally. If their father could see them now, what would he think of his most selfless Knight shedding away the title he had honoured them with? It wouldn’t be the only disappointment that they would have the dishonour of bringing to their father’s feet, knowing to have in themselves both the love and shame and terror enough to don’t meet his eyes if that ever happened, they would grovel for their failure, if need be.

Even now, they deluded themselves with such sceneries. Such hopes. They would take on merrily the destruction by their father’s own hands. The next days would be difficult indeed, they thought, trying to live them as lightly as they could when their heart couldn’t simply move past such thoughts. They would need any help they could get on the way up, with carrying their own weight through this unknown post-mortem. To shed one title, even if disrespectful to the beloved dead, would help. They made their peace with the decision, they supposed. And as their eyes fell back down to their sibling, they still were slotted against their chest, comfortably slumped once more against them like a drunk against a pillar, one arm partially around the former Hollow Knight’s chest, the other scratching their own shell like when sleepiness bothered toddlers.

Such things did not ail them, thus the strangeness of the action. But it very soon dawned upon them what it meant, and carefully they unwind their arm from around the other’s smaller body, and as their fingers dried from the void the light chased off their carapace, they let blunt, declawed fingertips touch the horns of their sibling’s shell. They didn’t dare to press it strongly, but with enough friction, a thin speck of it came off. Small and flat, like a leaf from a plant at the brink of another season. Their mother was a being of discrete power but great craftsmanship, and they never thought themselves too alike her if not for three traits. Their inherited height, their ability to love so blindly, and the manner in which they molted, like a plant outgrowing itself, shedding the rougher surface and sporting a newer and malleable version underneath, that would expand quickly and to be careful with until it hardened.

They lowered their hand to show it to their sibling, the small, ashen speck caught in black digit. Their sibling’s hands were infinitely smaller as they stilled their larger wrist, caught the thin, pale blade of molt, and brought the small thing closer to their eyes. _“I suppose the elevator problem will have to wait.”_

Apparently, their sibling had been listening to the answers the former Hollow Knight repeated on loop every time the question presented itself. There was no interrupting a process that had just signalled its beginning. The elevator, the promise to Hornet, even Hallow would have to wait for these next few days their sibling would take to molt into a greater shell of themselves. A delicate process they knew they would have to wrestle their sibling into stillness. 

It was something that also came to them with a degree of concern. Did they have a couple days? They promised that they would be there to aid them with the process, even if only as far as to offer them company and be the voice of reason, weighting the other side of the scale that wanderlust had been sovereign over. They had no reason to believe they wouldn’t endure a couple days, no - out of danger, and out of the most haunted parts of Hallownest, parts which were proficient on shortening their lifespan with the dreadfulness it brought them - they should be there when their sibling was ready to transverse this fading Kingdom once again.

How much longer after, they didn’t know. A week, by the former time measurements and now ancient calendars? Perhaps a full mantid brew, a month? The future belonged to Wyrms and those alone, and their children were all but left to squander, bound to the guesswork of every other simple, gray, mediocre being. They supposed it was best in this way, they wouldn’t have liked the taste of knowing they would disappoint their sibling too. Carefully, they slightly led their sibling off their folded legs, and they took the clue for themselves to walk off, and give the former Hollow Knight room to stand. There was a new strength to their limbs now. To do so wasn’t so taxing, nor nearly as pitiful. They would make it to the surface, after all. Many others would not, unless something was done about that impossible climb. A problem for their future selves, and a possibly taller Ghost of Hallownest. 

May they find more happiness than themselves had in that ridiculous height of theirs. May their sibling be wise, and choose to cease molting after this molt or the next, keep their invaluable medium height that made them so impossible to catch, and so terribly discrete. Hallow’s weight and the size of their shell was naught but a disadvantage in this decaying Kingdom, without a doubt so beyond Hallownest too. It would take a civilisation of ancient blood, acquaintances with beings as old as Wyrms and unruly, disorderly items such as the Void to have beings of their height normalised. Hallownest was not it. Perhaps no Kingdom alive would be it. Of its kind, Hallownest was the last, and through their sacrifice, it should have lasted eternal. 

For them it would. It lasted as long as themselves. That was their own comfort, as selfish and bittersweet as that was. Idealised not with them in mind, and with themselves never presented to it as its most selfless Knight, that Hallownest of old was dying without mourning them. Yet, it would not abandon them. It would be their sarcophagus, and the Hollow Knight it's tombstone. They weren’t perishing unaccompanied, at the scarlet flame’s spotlight, they would play their last solos, Hallownest and a hallowed child.

They welcomed such. The only that understood their mourning awaited above, and they would meet it. Hallownest would be buried with its broken knight, and wouldn’t be mourned by lady fair and pale. Like the old lullaby foretold. Perhaps there was a degree of foretelling in common bug, after all.

* * *

**Hallow**

(verb, usually passive)

General:

  * to give something great importance and respect, often because it is very old;



Religion:

  * to make something holy;



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liked it? Leave a comment. Hated it? Feel free to cyberbully me at Instagram or Discord! ( @riptaide or Herja#8664 )


	7. Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayy bruh. Sorry for taking so long with this. IRL caught me really hard. From now on, we are working on the ‘no deadline’ method. I will see this work done, but I cannot promise the same consistency of before. On another note: change of pace, aye. Let’s go bugkin, let’s go!
> 
> Thank you if you have read this so far. I know it is not easy for most folks to keep up with long and slow paced works. It is definitely not for everyone. For you that endured it and is so far into, I thank you whole-heartedly. I write for you, word-loving, lyrical kin, and no one else. Exoskeletal muses of mine, let’s g o o o

Hallownest had changed.

The former last civilisation had fallen into disrepair, down to complete ruins at parts wherein walking through these familiar roads no longer left like walking into a fading Kingdom, but rather one already long gone. An aged civilisation that left no heirs, and abandoned it had been for so long, that now it was mostly composed of massive plant lives and crumbled stones, coated with hovering dust and the columns of long shadows. This no longer was the Kingdom for a white-clad bug to transverse with a long, dragging gown. No longer this was a civilisation, a term which already implied the ideal of equality of opportunity, to be offered to all beasts, great or small, should they land their feet in Hallownest. 

Now, it was returning to its wilder roots. Prior to the infection that led all beasts to a terrible hive mind, no better than the life of the roots and plants that covered this beautiful graveyard they still called home. Prior to the King, pale and brilliant, who had freed common bug from thinking nothing at all, and used to gang in corners and odd clans, of ranging strengths and intelligences, offering no sense of organisation nor fairness. A land of a wild, livid and endless night, that preceded all the lights yet was trimming with life. The Hallownest they found, untamed and unkind. A place that harboured its best sights and many secrets deep within its bowels, and had no intention of handing them to trespassers. Violent at encounters, crude and raw, this land offered no easy passage to any, be them strangers or natives. 

That had never died, they supposed. Without a harness, it was blooming once again with its ruthless instinct at full force, requiring strength and determination of all life forms if they wished to survive here, requirements which were paid in blood, at the cost of the death and misfortune of the weaker. The Kingdom seemed to only scarcely, and very faintly, hold on the remnants of Higher Thought. Just a moment away from being gone entirely, the last survivors of that civilisation of old woke from the infection and must be scrambling, lost, down below at the City of Tears. The last generation to have met light and music, order and law, and the beauty of opportunity. They were these remnants, survivors of a stability this lad no longer offered, and as such they were only a blow from being wiped out. 

They would soon slip away. Themselves, the others. Hornet and Ghost would perhaps be the last to go, and with them the memory or knowledge of living in a place where there was something greater than this wilderness. But it was, nonetheless, on the brink of complete extinction. Strangely enough, it was not only an awareness that the Kingdom held at such a delicate, unique second, it also was something they could see. At the doorway of complete erasure, a mournful landscape stretched before their eyes, and it was still beautiful. Terribly so, even in such a fashion.

Lamp posts still stood, thoughtfully smithed an era ago, they endured even if the lamps they harboured were mostly broken. The posts now had company, like a convoy surrounding a great carriage, the plants that surrounded the metal weren’t as straight nor as unwavering as the poles, but in their decadence to all sides, the gray plant life was destroying pavement with its lawless growth. It was making room for the pole’s grave whenever those roots toppled them too, as it had done to gates and was doing to pillars, and perhaps all of Hallownest would one day be entirely gone by this unstoppable force called the unlife, that thrived the most in this endless night. Before that came to happen, however, all of them stood proud in a moment of coexistence. 

This would, one day, erase them too. Not only the Hollow Knight, whom they believed mustn’t even exist in the mind of most survivors. Between the broad and kind Hegemol and the most jolly Ogrim, who was the Hollow Knight but a reserved Knight who was scarcely spoken of and appeared in no parades, but could at times be seen making the escort of their King, Queen or ambassadors? Ah, they must be gone from most thoughts already - but the last to fade, the memory of light, that would inevitably fade too. The next inevitable step, like a landing that would always come after a fall. Up to Hallownest and themselves, they supposed, whether it would be a rough fall, crippling and harsh as all thought bled from the corpse, or if it would be a smoother landing, enough that the next generation, wild and ignorant, would still find a way to stand and survive, ignorant of the light their forefathers thrived in. 

To witness this moment was beautiful and sad, both. But they would not turn their eyes away from it, they would not reject Hallownest at its last moments. They had been abandoned enough, they supposed. Fought over, pulled and strained. It was in their blood that the sickness festered, at their heart that love beat, and at their visage and mind that memories remained. They would endure that last moment together, they supposed. Their siblings might have a life outside this Kingdom, should they choose to wander the wastelands beyond, seek some other fate for themselves. Hallow knew for certain that they were not going anywhere, even if they could. 

With that, they made some kind of peace. Their head couldn’t raise any further, carapace still so severely damaged, but they walked with a slight remnant of pride. They didn’t meet the eyes of the stone statues that lined the walkways, like milestones on every route they took, but instead observed them in a general sweep, like the crowd they made. These statues were an old tradition, too from before either light, from the tribes and clans that composed this land that preceded the Wyrm's arrival. It wasn’t a practice they had abandoned once he arrived to reign them, and there was no motive to stop anyone from keeping them. 

In the most traditional families, when a dear member died, they proceeded with their funeral rites in whichever manner they saw fit. The resting grounds had many urns and tombs, harboured the bodies of nearly all the bugs that came to die posterior to the establishment of the Kingdom. A place to lay them to rest, a place to mourn them, that was part of having a mind, great or small. There was no rejection on using the resting grounds for their intended purpose, but too these statues were commissioned by the locals to the many stone masons of Hallownest. They would ask for a statue of their deceased, with varying degrees of detail and intricacy. What seemed to be shared by all was that they resembled the height they must have had in life, and the masks and faces of these bugs received most - sometimes all - of the sculptor’s attention. Once done, these statues were taken to the roads and passages of this Kingdom, placed somewhere of the family’s choosing, and never on the way of passage.

Through their stone eyes, they told a little of Hallownest’s history, in the shape of the love a family had for its dead member. It was as if in this manner, they could ground a little of the beloved’s soul on this land, in this earth. Put them to watch over wanderers, native and foreign, that came to grace this holy Kingdom that their families called home, called theirs. Their retribution for all the goodness they lived in life, all those they left behind and no longer could shelter below their nail and wing. They guarded this land now represented in stone. These sculptures were now the only crowd of Hallownest, and they did achieve their intended purpose, making this graveyard of a Kingdom seem like a home. As if they squinted their sight, blurred their focus, they could imagine they were walking down one of those many parades, behind the carriage of the Pale King and White Lady, with eyes never accompanying the Pure Vessel but they never demanded such attention for themselves.

Their mourning parade was gray and quiet. They required nothing more, truly. They carried themselves with the same decorum, the same composure of one that might be in the crowd themselves. With their cloak dyed a darker gray from the Abyss even after drying, their head raised, but not a word spoken, they followed their sibling. The parade celebrated their ascension and mourned their woes, and they offered the same to the deceased, the same respects paid. The trip there had made them stronger, and the Void within themselves answered their call should they summon it. Their arm wasn’t restored, nor the shape of their carapace, but when they had begun climbing the well, it produced tendrils to make up for the missing limb. Lacking digits and consistency, that was all they could do with such appendages, truly. Not wield a nail, that was for certain. But it could aid them up and it had. For that reason alone they were capable of climbing back to Hallownest’s bowels, and it hadn’t been necessary to make themselves at home at the Lighthouse now gone dark. 

They had made it back to Dirtmouth in a decent time, although they couldn’t claim that the speed was due to their restored strength, nay. The speed had a name, and it was a friend of their sibling. As their parade of statues and slumped retainers led back through the Palace Grounds, the faces were replaced by large spools of ruined silk, and at a far corner, a Stag Station hid behind all that pile of abandoned merchandise, left where they were ages ago as their delivery destination was gone from the very stone itself. They knew the place even though they had never entered it; their father was not one to travel through the Stagways, but they were aware of this one station, from where the influx of visitors and items seemed nearly constant, until the decree of a lockdown closed them all in hopes to slow down the infection.

It had been sealed without time to prepare, and with little notice. There were still many crates and spools on the way. Signs were leaning against the walls and columns, as if to someone the task to pull them down had been given, but they never finished such, nor anyone came here to fetch the tablets and store them until they were to be raised again. Something that vastly differed that Hallownest of old in the brink of collapse and this one already past it, was the immenseness of the hope that that time used to harbour, flooding the hearts and minds with it. Like the Pale King’s light, even when faded and quietened to the most discrete of glows, it was still there. Hope was there, in all hearts, even when darkness frightened, looming at the edges of one's sight like an exhaustion one could not combat for long. They missed it too, they supposed. Hope was not something that would aid them now, but it was such a familiar emotion. It was the drapes of their most familiar silk cloak, and the weight of their armour. It was the click of their feet on polished tiles, and the rustle of voluminous, pale ferns at the breeze. It was the press of light against their shell, and the murmur without words, gifting promise.  _ Better days will come _ .

They hadn’t. There were no more days. But on this lengthy night, they were discovering things too. None as familiar and comfortable as the daylight hope of that Hallownest of before, but in these ruins, they were bonding with that most gruesome, raw and cursed half of themselves. A half that they supposed they would never understand fully, nor love fully, but they were growing to accept it. Mostly because they loved their siblings fully, and they simply could not reject something that composed them too. There wasn’t the light of hope tonight, but there was the comfort of company. The mirth of surprise. The strange pleasure of seeing life making an effort, enduring somehow all that had come to happen - it was the slight evidence perhaps that their sacrifice wasn’t entirely in vain, and that they had endured eternity bound for a reason.

Hearing heavy footsteps when their sibling struck the golden bell of the forgotten station, it brought to their heart such odd mirth. The Stagways were once the pride and joy of this kingdom. A valiant, sturdy and fast kin used to feel an immense pride for being the only capable of doing this task, to bring people and merchandise through these pathways and tunnels that made sense perhaps only for one like them. The tramways were meant to ease down some of that flux, for Hallownest had been so busy in a time before them, before vessels and before the infection, but never anyone hoped or even dreamt that Hallownest would exist without its prized Stag Stations. It caught all off guard to see them close, one day, and with it their entire lives felt as if it had been hanged upside down. A bad dream, that they all hoped to wake from suddenly someday.

Their sibling called this one the Last Stag. He was aged, raspy of voice, and his steps that used to be spotless in their precision, now seemed clumsy. Nonetheless, he seemed to retain the knowledge of these tunnels, and the strength to carry a passenger or two. Even without having ever heard a single word from their diminutive sibling, the elderly Stag sounded and seemed immensely fond of them, hesitating not to offer to carry them as well if that was the smaller vessel's wish. Those eyes could not see anymore, stags never had the best eyesight of all bugs, usually just barely discerned between light and dark and forms, but their other senses were frighteningly precise. He heard the former Hollow Knight’s steps and knew their weight, assumed their height precisely from the length of their stride.

Vessels were odd, a lifeform that by no means made sense nor was supposed to exist. Terribly lithe, they didn’t weigh much. Even themselves, with the size of their shell and their mother's predisposition to great heights. They climbed the chairs carefully, cushioned seats harnessed on the back of the great beast, and they wondered how long they had remained bound to the Last Stag? Did he simply wear them for all this time, like themselves hung by their armour at the temple? Did he too somehow find comfort in those bindings? They didn't ask, of course, as a tendril held their nail while their only remaining arm gripped the back of the seat before them, the one their sibling had taken for themselves. They had asked their sibling why they kept from themselves this transportation option, considering the state Hallow had been before and the merciless ordeal it had been to transverse this decaying kingdom. Their sibling's answer was a cruel assumption, but no less true: the Stag didn't offer a smooth journey, and they hardly would have the strength to hold on. A hit on their shell might be enough to break it, and they didn't think there was enough void and shade in them should the accident take place.

Hallow understood that simple justification. It wasn't in them to share that they still didn't think they would make it back should their shell break. The harm done to it wasn't only a crack on the organic mask, no, it was a damage done to their very soul, confirmed by how it carried like a scar of soul in their shade. The harm of light marked even their darkest recess, altered them not on the surface only, not just in body, but on their very composition and most intimate selves, of bare soul and animated void. It wasn't a matter of just fixing what could be seen, their wounds went deep, as far back as that Hallownest of old. And neither thing, them or the Kingdom, would heal from the damage caused to them. There wasn't the means, the resources, the environment. Nonetheless, they held on the beast's harness, and angled their shell to keep their horns from standing tall. They held on a prayer to a memory of light that their already short time in this post-mortem wouldn't be shortened by an accident. And in a lounge, the Stag made his way to Dirtmout's station. 

The fading town was the exact same as they left it. The circle of oval-shaped buildings, most carved from fossilized egg or stone, all rounded around a minimal path between them, where a bench and lamp post stood in better shape than the many others that littered the routes before and beyond it. That small assembly sheltered that spot from the wind, that blew through Dirtmouth constantly, from all sides but always seeming to lead into the town. It was so for a reason. The plants hadn't given up on Hallownest, finding a way to grow their grayish, dirty leaves on every corner and every pathway, vines thin and soft that even so, seemed to break and burst from below the pavement. The wind hadn't given up on Hallownest either. It still guided all bugs to Dirtmouth, those with some critical thinking and some not, to reach this place in a basin of safety, where a discrete well and station stood ready to introduce any wanderer to the wondrous land beneath. The promise of a beautiful Kingdom, safe, prosperous and fair no longer could be fulfilled. But the wind didn't seem to get the memo; like themselves, it stubbornly held on its duty, even if at no one's behalf but their own.

That dirt had piled a little by their front door, and their sibling kicked it away quickly before pulling the creaky shellwood door open by its handles. The pile against the entrance foretold the abandonment they found within. There weren't any lamps lit in the small home their sister had found for them. The hammocks on the side remained hanging, light of any weight but their own. There weren't any ashes or coals by the open door of the small stove. The travelling bag that their sister usually hung by the hammock or door was nowhere on sight, nor her needle or her spool of gossamer. Their sibling's feet made small and soft sounds as they stepped into the home, the shellwood floor not protesting much under their minimal weight. Their nail was a louder sound, when they placed it over the table along their own strangely chunky bag. From within, the Ghost of Hallownest took their own lamp, minuscule and housing a single charged lumafly. 

It wasn't far fetched to think that Hornet must have left a little after themselves did, and remained just as long away. Things mustn't be easy at the City of Tears, they thought. Even less if those wretched soul scholars had somehow survived the infection in a number great enough to add to the masses. They were intelligent, they were powerful, and they were organised. By no means in theory they should oppose Hornet's leadership, in fact they should be the only ones that would see how befitting she was for this task, with her Wyrm half and the experience she amounted with time. Yet, the former Hollow Knight hadn’t been taught only hope and faith, but by the Old Light, they too had been taught to turn that into mistrust and bitterness. They trusted their sister to speak reason and to have the strength and wisdom to worm herself out of any situation that the current City of Tears might brew for her. Anything that wasn't the Soul Sanctum. The water they drank from was unique at the east side of Hallownest, a beverage of courts and their concealed poisons, of drama and treachery clad in rich cloaks that they had spent a lifetime observing coming and going from their father's side. 

It was not her environment. Perhaps with the Ghost of Hallownest at her side, she could add a little shadow to her own figure. Enough of a mystery and plenty of deadliness, even a blunt instrument like their sibling, entirely illiterate in the crafts of court, was a tool and statement of their own. What they feared was clear - her life, of course, that could be put on the line by those whom would seek to seize the reigns of Hallownest given the absence of a fitting light. Second to birthright only, they were first in line of who would crowd the missing throne. And yet, neither her or them would cancel the inevitable outcome in the former Hollow Knight's mind; Hallownest either would perish to the hostile borderlands that cradled it, or it would feast on itself before the strongest left it for the tribes and kin and Unn's Dream to devour the remains. None, either Hornet or the soul scholars, could prevent that as great minds decayed on the next generations, not being nurtured by order, law or light.

The Ghost of Hallownest could even that scale, they thought. A Lord of Shades to balance the fight, or rather, tip it entirely to their sister's side. The night would remain unkind but their sibling could make sure that her interests were guarded from interference, their supernatural influence hidden in a meager shell and small stature. It was just very fitting to this new and ephemeral moment of the Kingdom that its future would be chosen - hopefully - by two Wyrmchildren, one Child of Three Queens, another of voidheart contained within Pale shell, who in the dark feared naught and had the power to filter whatever came to be in this fading land. This awareness only brought an extra degree of seriousness and importance to their task at hand. They shouldn't distract from it. 

_ "Check the basement."  _ They said, and their sibling wasted no time to walk to the trapdoor further into the home. The former Hollow Knight passed on the grip of the great nail to a serpentine tendrils that stretched from their side, holding the item for them as they bent down to a crawl and angled their shell, making their way into the small home and closing the door behind themselves. The trapdoor creaked when their sibling pulled it open, and with no hesitation they disappeared into the space below, lantern and all. They crawled closer to behold from the entrance to the room underneath this home. 

When they first moved in, Hornet spoke of this place and they had permitted themselves a look at it. As large as their home except it also had a higher ceiling, she had suggested that they arrange it so they could have a place where they could stand in their temporary home. She hadn't known then how long they would live, if at all, nonetheless she had offered as if they, like her, had eternity to look forward to, blessed by their Wyrm half who saw in time no ailment, only in failure, defeat in battle and a lack of purpose. She had begun working on it, they noticed. The largest pieces had been pushed to the walls, most covered by thin linens. The rugs that had been rolled at a corner were now closer to the entrance, as if she hoped to ask whenever they met again which ones they would like to stretch on the polished stone below. It was already enough for its intended purpose.

Their sibling's shell was tilted upwards, looking at them in expectation of further instructions. They blamed them not for that feeling of loss they assumed they must be feeling. There was a raw, innate, instinctual sensation that came to one at the brink of molting. A sense of wrongness and itchiness from their own shell, doused with a wariness of touch but combined with the craving to just rub the pale shell against any rough surface for a relief of that foreign, brittle and outer coating that had begun peeling off and in no small degree. Like a root, the Ghost of Hallownest had begun nearly immediately to let go of small scales of ashen molt that lingered on the air and fell down slowly on the path behind them. In their mother, it had always been a delicate, pretty sight. She who had always let out such small pieces of her being wherever she went, as if eternally molting, eternally regrowing and always staying the very same, she blessed the very air with her being, surrounding herself in a fickle cloud of glowing scales as if they were petals of the most delicate and exotic of flowers. To them, they could never attach the same beauty and grace to their own molting process, not with how irritating and disruptive the process always was, ceasing their training whenever it was spotted.

Their sibling must be feeling that same thing now. With Hallow expecting them to guide them into the City of Tears so they could join their sister and perhaps find a way to aid her, as well as a solution for the impossible climb of the Abyss, their molt truly began at a most unfortunate hour, where they even hadn't the time to come up with a plan. Their sibling, in all of their restlessness, mustn't have ever faced such a thing before, being bound by their own limitations into stillness. They did not envy them, not at all. But they would not leave them in this journey, nor without aid when they could offer them some. Very few memories of theirs were untainted things, and this was but one of them. 

Their father had never seemed irritated when their molting began. When somebody came to him and informed him of the signs, he never reacted gravely. They supposed he found some fulfillment, if not downright relief, to know that his vessel was functional enough that the process was taking place with no estimated delays or apparent issues. It was a milestone of progress that he would dutifully note, before leading his Pure Vessel for the corner of his workshop that he had prepared for such an ordeal. Always at his sight, and in that locked up room, he would guard them for the entirety of the process. He worked the details religiously - the safety of the cushions and the amount of space they would take. The placement of their head was always aimed and thought out so to prevent curves or malformations of their horns, whom the King had nearly hand crafted into what they were. A critically straight mask, with a geometrically well arched crown of twin horns that rounded in the same degree that they joined at their face. Tips as sharp as they would go, with symmetric inner barbs. There was a mathematical care to how they were pressed the moment they were standing on their new but still soft shell. 

If they had ever felt precious in this life, it had been in such moments. When their father who never saw them as a being, handled them as much attention as a sculptor would handle their masterpiece. Through the weight of his responsibilities, the darkness of his dread and the pain of the cost, he measured and pulled and bound their shell as if for a moment, he could put aside all the sadness they brought him. In the process, he saw a manner to honour the souls lost like a tombstone of his own design. The music that he never wrote for them could be embodied in another kind of art as they tailored his Pure Vessel to what he must imagine the Prince he never had would have looked like. Pale and perfect, if not for the emptiness of their eyes and the impossible thinness of their body. It was a good memory, overall. And the least they could do was to offer their sibling a neutral one, at the bare minimum.

They climbed down the hatch, massive shell and horns fitting through the entrance first, then they dropped their weight once their body aligned. Their hand braced the impact of the landing instead of their face, and their legs didn't look too different from a weaver's when they arched to share the weight of the landing. On this higher ceiling, they allowed themselves to stand indoors, even if only for a moment before they kneeled down to untie the rugs rolled at the corner. The dust was no issue for beings that did not breathe, and it wouldn't be harmful for the process. Stretching a rug, they placed it at the centre of the room, before fetching another to do the same. Pilling them up, they hoped they would make a soft enough surface for the process, enough that there would be no dents or imprints in their sibling's shell at the end of this.  _ "Could you look for pillows?" _

Their sibling nodded, before walking around to the covered furniture and closed crates. The more they sought, more dust was bothered from its stasis, now hanging at the height of their sibling in a cloud clearly visible only due to the lantern they carried. Eventually, they found some, and began throwing them unceremoniously over the rug. The embodiment of the molting irritation, they supposed. Nonetheless, they began arranging the pillows beneath the couple last rugs, to create an even casket out of it. It wasn't even remotely close to the arrangement their father used to make for them. Their own molting nest used to be a devious casket of metal, filled with thin sand and coated in the middle with the finest silk. Soft but firm at places, both to grant them free reign to grow plenty but also retain the imagined shape. 

This wasn't nearly as fine, but it would do. They had no expectations as to how their sibling would look like nor how their horns would grow. They wondered if the Ghost of Hallownest even worried with such things. They never seemed too concerned with presentation, but confidence in their own carapace might not equal an entire disinterest on how they would grow out. And as they smoothed the last wrinkles of the makeshift casket, they met their sibling's empty eyes, observing them and letting out little besides a hesitation so strangely uncharacteristic of them.  _ "...Do you fear it?" _

They doubted so. Fear did not seem to be a word in their sibling's vocabulary, even less in the repertoire of emotions they must collect in the depth of their voidheart, to share with the Lord of Shades whenever that great form took shape. Their words were enough to nudge the Ghost of Hallownest from idleness, as they worked their hands on the claw buttons of their mothwing cloak, and took it out, finally. They handed it to the former Hollow Knight, who proceeded to hang it at the nearby cloak hanger. If only that particular piece of furniture could too hang needles and nails, surely it would be near the door instead of here, at some corner of the basement.  _ "Not afraid, only worried. You will be fine, won't you? Do not leave Dirtmouth. Promise me that." _

Their sibling's concern was heartwarming. Of course they were not going anywhere. They took a seat on the floor, before the makeshift casket that despite not being particularly large, it did take the centre of the room. The former Hollow Knight's damaged back was pressing against the edge of a drawer and they did not think this could be good for their broken plating, but they were not moving away from this place until their sibling was well into the process.  _ "I shall be guarding your respite. By memory of light, you have my word, from a Knight to another."  _

How much weight and meaning their word could harbour was up to debate. In a manner, they had resigned to the title of Knight at their newest accolade at the Abyss. And they had never been much of a Knight, in any way. But their sibling was one, through and through. Even if now, they thought they saw more for Hallownest. A tough descent into forgetfulness and decay, but nonetheless land to a new Higher Being and a new Queen. Together, they supposed Hornet and the Ghost of Hallownest could ward off for a while longer this Kingdom's expiration date. And it was not with a title of Knight that their sibling would pull it off, just like Hornet would not achieve so as Princess. Titles like those were always secondary and only meaningful as long as the figurehead that gave them meaning existed. And he no longer walked these lands, no longer that throne existed.

They could seize it, if they wished. Their sister and their voidhearted sibling. Queen of Hallownest and the Lord of Shades. Spearheading the pursuit to grant life a chance in the endless night. It wouldn't last long, it was a fool's errand. But alas, they were done themselves on calling that a fool's errand. Hallow sought a light to mend it all, and Hornet liked to believe there was hope in a civilisation of Hallownest's caliber, of order, law and higher thought, without a Higher Being of soul and light to steer it, feed it. Their mother, bound as she was, would not fill this role, and Hallownest could not wait much longer. Let them all be delusional, however. May they all seek the impossible, with the little time they had. It was all Hallow had, after all, and they hoped to enjoy it a little. 

_ "Do you remember what you must do?"  _ They asked, as their sibling finally moved to their spot and carefully stepped over the rugs. They were careful to don't undo the former Hollow Knight's work as they lowered themselves to the ground, and laid down on the nest they made. Of course, Hallow was quick to evaluate the position, scan every span, every wrinkle and every angle of their craft. For something makeshift and so scarce of proper resources, they were proud of their own doing. It was as good of one as it would go, and the rest was on the hands of their sibling to deliver. 

From now on, it was advisable that they did not move so to not disrupt the shape of the surroundings. The moment they fell asleep, they most likely would remain so for a greater part of the procedure. Their carapace would melt back into their shell, and push the newer shell past the brittle and weaker surface of the older one. Then, once satisfied yet still covered with the older, it would reform their carapace below so to fit better the new shell. When they woke, it would be time to stand upright. The hardest part of it all, they supposed, was to convince their sibling that they should remain here, still as a statue, straight as a reed, for the estimated two days it would take for their shell and carapace to fully harden. At this time was usually when the Pale King added boards and binds to their shell, bending the still soft surface into sharper tips, even barbs, correcting the angle of their horns from a natural discrete discrepancy to spotless symmetry. They would not enforce that on their siblings, particularly something that none without rulers and tapes could measure the difference. 

_ "I do. I will stay still down here, you have my word. From a vessel to another."  _ They said, and the former Hollow Knight nodded only slightly, so to prevent their horns from scratching the wall behind them. They brought their sibling's lumafly lamp up closer to themselves - they would not need it, but they also doubted that their sibling would be willing to part from it. It might be the only light of this household, but their sibling took the precious little bug wherever they went, like the multitude of charms and tools of exploration, as well as countless colourful pins to mark spots on their map. They would not keep it from them, the right to remain with their lumafly companion was not up for debate.

_ "The Pale King would put me face down as soon as I was unconscious. The position shapes the shell straighter. Would you like that?"  _ Hallow mentioned, the words light and heavy, both. Strangled and soft, all at once. The memory was a tender one, but also, painful to speak up. They wondered if they had ever spoken of their father to their sibling. They wouldn't be surprised it they simply had never mentioned it. The subject was eternally at their mind, constantly in every thought and every comparison to a maddening point, a gruesome torture. It was a massive beast in the room that they tended to constantly, but never actively voiced often, if at all. Their words were not pronounced by that hideous maw of theirs, but nonetheless did they feel their reprehensible tongue curl against the inner walls of their carapace, as if to voice that name in thought was a severe enough crime that they should atone for by biting the organ off. 

They weren't sure if they were amazed at such an immediate and visceral response to their own thoughts, or if absolutely terrified at it. The Pale King was gone, dead. Even in life, he had never given them an ill word, a hurtful adjective, even less displayed any kind of aggression or violence. At best, in court, he would stand suddenly and it quieted the room immediately. Needn't even to spread his wings or brighten his glow, the movement alone held their tongues. Even when training, always on his own, their father was fast but never aggressive. Several claws spun a spear much longer than himself. The weight of his head was balanced by a long tail that he kept curled at all times beneath his gown. Free of that vest of nearly no opening, he was lethal and precise, and trained with no enemies, only a dance of his own grace against his own thoughts. Not even then he seemed aggressive.

But the thought of speaking of him had a weight now that they didn't know if it had worsened with this journey they took and the desecration of their title, or if they had simply ignored that bitterness at first, so drunk in their own mourning that they could bypass this nervous reaction. But now, graced with a gentle memory and for once, little thought on all they lacked, all the missed and all they would never have, now the mention of him struck like a blow. As if they had lost the right to refer to him, if they ever had. They had failed him, and were yet to atone for it. They had no right to bring up his title, even less name, and it seemed as if part of them, a part so loved and familiar and spotless, it would not let them forget it. Their thoughts were a dire thing, but they did not pass them on for their sibling.

_ "I think so. We would look more alike. It might take a while for me to fall asleep, though. This is not a bench, I don't know if I can easily fall asleep like this."  _ Their sibling spoke as if there was any hurry in this world besides their own. There wasn’t. Hallow wasn’t going to fall apart on the spot in the next few days, there was no sign of such a thing even if their existence seemed to be heeding by a deadline they could not see, but feel it looming in the horizon like a terrible but inevitable dusk. They wouldn’t be going anywhere in the time that the Ghost of Hallownest would take to do this, and themselves had already given their word on the subject.

The only one in a hurry was the Ghost of Hallownest, who wanted the entire world all at once. Wanted to see, aid, defeat, explore and conquer. Wanted to be with them, wanted to be with their sister, wanted to be with their siblings but also with the survivors. The embodiment of the night was an odd creature, for despite being so innately and terribly native to that stasis, unafraid of the night and cruelty of a world of hurt and no light, they still had it in them to adore the creatures that inhabited it. Their sister of mortal half, the roaming souls, of minds great and small. The Void was hostile to them, so was the wasteland beyond and the lack of light and thought. But that Lord of Shades held no ill thought to the creatures trying to transverse it. Idle beholder of that struggle, they witnessed life pass them by and it was a wrong assumption to think it unsympathetic for those woes. They sympathised with them all, with mortals and even their opposite half, their hallowed sibling, child of lights. 

Perhaps they knew that like the night’s veil, they could interfere a little. Offer shelter to their sister and all good-willing folk. The night inevitably took them all like the wastelands beyond, but perhaps they could tip the scales a little to those they favoured. Their kin, more than any other, awaited for that hand. They had a duty to fulfill to their shadow kin. Before such greatness and yet, short-lived adventure, they could imagine the restlessness that infected them now, being forced to wait instead of tackling it all. Themselves shared a little of that emotion, but perhaps the former Hollow Knight was a little more comfortable with the thought of inevitability than their sibling was. There was no hurrying time. Their sibling’s restlessness expressed itself by the rocking of their feet, that in their pivot, turned from side to side in a mirrored motion.

_ “Take as long as you need. Hallownest, Hornet, our siblings and I can wait.”  _ They spoke, more than ever, their intonation on their voidhearted bond sounding endless leagues away from the Ghost of Hallownest’s own intonation. Wherein their sibling’s voice was clear as water, neutrally sharp like a cold but also so capable of ranging from determination to bristling anger, the former Hollow Knight’s was too much like their father’s, or even ironically, like hers. Riddled with staggering somberness and a gravelly tone, unhurried and unaltered by its surroundings, there was a recital tone to their voice from one that rarely was allowed to speak it. Sounded stunted too, as if the quietness concealed more, which it definitely did. Concealed a powerful voice he reserved for her and her alone, one that would match hers in loudness and spite, one that lacked in nothing the rawness of the ill emotions she harboured for this long.  _ “I will be here with you as long as it takes.” _

It was a somber thought, to think themselves were as much their father’s as they were her’s. The White Lady hadn’t been very present in their lives, nay. A portion of them was a mystery that hadn’t influenced much on their upbringing, but were half of their shell nonetheless. But the two lights that had grown then, night have mercy on them, they were outlandish opposites to one another but nonetheless left their mark. She ruined them alright, for never again they would have that strength and confidence in which they had walked into that Temple, never again would they be so present in the moment nor contently ignorant of the world’s plans to them. Blessed and cursed indeed.

_ “Thank you, Hallow.”  _ Their sibling said, their tone a little fresher, softened perhaps by this shallow comfort that the former Hollow Knight offered. It was all they could offer however, and seeing that it had some kind of use, it eased themselves. And as their sibling kept rocking their feet from side to side, they brought their own knees closer to their own thorax, so they could rest the lower rim of their shell against the black carapace. There was nothing in this basement that reminded them of their own Temple, even if the scent of hovering dust was familiar. There were no seals to paint the walls, light up and respond to any movement they attempted, any channeling of their soul that would feed it with an energy akin to the one that seared them in place. There was nothing in their head but their own thoughts, at times numbed and neutral, at others strangely warm and unkind, but entirely of their own making. 

This new Hallownest was a cold place. Cold and forlorn, and it made them think of the hot spring and how they would like to visit it again, should the opportunity grant itself. They saw no purpose in lighting up their little home’s stove given they didn’t want to spend any of the shellwood their sister had brought and would make better use of. They did not require air, warmth, meals or soulless light to survive, and to waste that resource their sister most certainly had no option but to require, it felt unfair. They wouldn’t do anything about this coldness that they felt, this strangeness that seemed to itch. Shouldn’t surprise them at all that the moment they sat down, the cold settled on them, not only work of the environment but that longing in their own heart. Idleness was their enemy when the matter was avoiding that cold from settling in, even if it was their natural state. They could accept that they would never be warm again, they could accept that it was part of them to always miss that heat of their life before.

But they had limited time on their hands and they would rather not waste it with such effort, be it to brew that acceptance in themselves, or to pity themselves for needing to do so in the first place. Their shell raised from its support on their knee, only seeing eye focusing on their sibling once more, who had stopped rocking their feet. Slowly, they permitted themselves to crawl closer. With most of their weight on their haunches, they moved a hand carefully under their body. It was such an hilarious concept at times, that this tiny figure had so much hidden within this minuscule carapace. Their sibling could stand where the former Hollow Knight’s horns began and their tips would still reach higher than their sibling’s own. Their petite body, malleable and not unlike a ragdoll now, fit exactly like one in their hand, weighed the same too. They wished they had more than one hand so as to make the movement smoother, but the wish could do little. With their limited capacity, they carefully turned their sibling over, fingers carefully positioning their arms and legs straighter, their shell facing down. Nearby, but out of the way should they move, they put their lumafly lantern. Their sibling wouldn’t wake in the dark. 

The Ghost of Hallownest had no qualms with the dark, but themselves still had. They would offer them the same kindness they wished they would have offered to themselves. With one last look over the basement, they allowed themselves to stand, straighten their shell, and with a hand on the trapdoor’s edge, their barbed feet found some support on the nearest wall to haul them up. They weren’t heavy, climbing up wasn’t difficult, but it was a crawl nonetheless. They not only looked like a weaver stuck in a cavern and tunnels too tight, they also felt like one. With limbs too long, plated lengthily and with not enough bending points. Their elbow stood like some grotesque spike when they crawled their way up, their knees equally sharp when they jutted to the sides, feet finding the shellwood flooring of the main floor. 

With the only lantern they owned remaining there, guarding their sibling’s bedside, the only light that made itself into this home came from outside, and it was filtered by the darkened glass of the windows. The lamp post with the charged lumaflies remained there, offering the same beam of light that covered only a limited spot on the shellwood floor. Spot which their sister hadn’t covered with furniture nor anything else. It remained there, as if awaiting for their return, the raspy, malformed pillow they had was only but a pace away, on a chair, waiting for them to grasp it and place it at their illuminated spot should they wish it. For once, there was no urgency in this post-mortem of theirs. Nowhere they should go at their sibling’s request. Rather, the opposite. They could allow themselves to bask in that light and comfortable idleness should only they wish it. For once, there would be no opposition. 

None besides their own consciousness. They supposed they would be more comfortable here, safer from the world that seemed so dangerous for one as damaged as they were. They would be happier too, being able to reminisce on their thoughts now unfiltered, maybe they could close their eyes and dream once more, and in the aloof distance of the dream realm, at her home and theirs, they could entertain themselves with their full-bodied grace, music and a skip of time. They could manipulate that place a little, and dance with their weapons against foes of their own device. They could speak there, out loud, and pretend she was only but lurking beneath the clouds, listening to them, the product of her hateful craft. They would play the piece she used to like the most, a valorous, brilliant knight, antagonist of her own salvation, in either battle or poetry. The Wyrm’s finest, perishing time and time again in her halls. They would be lying if they denied it was something fulfilling in its own right. Their last stand, stretched forever. To never win, but never lose, and yet hold her attention forevermore. They were enamoured with that prose, both warrior and lover of that battle.

Even her. They had it in themselves to miss even her. Miss her in the manner they missed him. Miss the purpose they gave the former Hollow Knight, miss the warmth they felt on their shell, miss the leadership they handed them and in more ways than one, intentionally or not, they had made them what they were, the centre of their unwavering attention, nurtured by what only a light could offer. They were this difficult, complex being, that they hated being but also loved so entirely for it was him, it was her, and it was their siblings. It was a holy dalliance and cursed progeny. They were the duty of a Knight, the upbringing of a Prince, the hatred of a scorned Goddess, and the love of a child. They carried plenty in their heart, galleries of memories, thoughts and emotions, but nowhere in them they could find regret for the fullness in which they had embraced every single of those roles at the time. They had loved them, and had loved to live for them, be the weapon to their purpose, machinery of their actions upon this holy land, they had been their hallowed tool.

They were growing to love the idea of this too. Strangely enough, and so mournfully late, it would be such a brief and last thing that they would get to enjoy. But they did, in a manner. To be just that,  _ Hallow; _ Sibling to two great Wyrmchildren, the Ghost and Daughter of Hallownest, who would push against the impossible and carve time where there wasn’t any. A role that requested from them nothing besides that they tried to live the most with the time they had been given, to speak to their sibling when the need surfaced. That was all. To accept that half of theirs, and indirectly, accept their siblings at the Abyss too. A simple, small role. As small as their capacity right now. It was an interesting change of pace - they were used to roles much greater than themselves, greater than what they could deliver. But this time, their duty was minimal. Exactly as much as what they could currently deliver.

And deliver they would. They bypassed the spot of light and headed to the door. Worked it open with gentleness, and pushed their great nail past the doorway first. The little town, according to their siblings, was home to other bugs besides the one they had met. There was a Cartographer and his wife, also another tall bug, wielder of a great nail. A nailsage kept a small shop, the closest to their own home, and at the other side, a young lady and traveller lived. Or used to. Their sibling regarded those two with bitterness when speaking of them, and they had not prodded. Maybe they would ask once they woke. The former Hollow Knight was a creature raised in court and as such, had their hearing sharp for the drama of the well-clad masses. A profound distaste for the arrogance and pettiness of those, but also, an eternal understanding that these were their people, and their environment. Who they were to judge the manner in which bugs wasted their lives? With no wars to fight, no hunts to see through and no children to bury, prosperity brewed new problems. Not always they were any lesser than the most primal issues of old, despite it often eluding to such. Certainly, starvation was more concerning than heartache, but suffering was something they didn't like to measure.

The Hollow Knight was acquainted with that thing, suffering, and they always found themselves surprised by where they would find most of it. How physical pain could bleed to naught but an ache in their memories, like the strain of training, where the pain of some words and thoughts only got stronger with time, simmered into a thicker brew. Memories and thoughts that distracted them greatly, they supposed, and blinded them too much to the things they needed to do and to their own faults, standing before their very own eyes. Distracted them too from their own new, void-given strength and how their eyesight wasn’t what it once had been, leading them to measure wrong the height of the doorway. 

The world did not offer much mercy to their distraction, had never done before, but this time it seemed to have chosen to whiplash immediately, instead of the longly delayed tortures it seemed to like to put the once Pure Vessel through. This time, the world’s response was quick, rough, and stupid like a pained beast. The plain of their horns met the archway with a sound far from delicate; were they in a hurry? They must have been, for the strength of the impact reverberated through their body and rattled the windows, trembling down to the fingers that they buried on the dirt outside when they winced strongly enough to bring their body as low as possible. For a moment, they held on still. If their shell wanted to break, it would heed no further warning. Their visit to the Abyss seemed now to have been providential, for what was holding the further cracked shell into two pieces seemed to be only the black lining within, doing some kind of godly work. They wondered if their crack widened, stretching itself further like a weaver’s net. They wouldn’t know.

Slowly, they allowed themselves to move again, berating themselves for their carelessness through the whole trajectory. Their sibling had requested something very simple of them, nothing far fetched, really. Be safe, wait around. They couldn’t possibly mess it up, especially so soon having been left to their own devices. The shade within their body contorted itself, like some sort of trapped, upset vermin; what a shame, truly. With their former name and title, with the honours they had shed, had they too shed their grace? They refused to let it be so. The lack of witnesses was a comfort; as they stood outside, they supported their great nail against their body, and slapped the dirt off their cloak, off their palm and their blunt nails.

What was not witnessed, might as well have not happened. And they were willing to let it be so; an event unregistered, with only the silent lumaflies for witness and the few gray reeds that waved at the caress of the faint breeze that travelled over this fading town and entered the Kingdom below from all crevices. An abandoned home with broken windows didn’t channel the wind as it once did, but the wind clearly hadn’t forgotten to do their part. Like such, the former Hollow Knight would restore their duty of choice. Graceful to move and a spine as straight as it would go. Twin spears for horns, the embodiment of a King’s pride. The wind would tell none of what it had witnessed, so it might as well be an invented tale, and they were willing to leave the event behind entirely. It would be easily forgotten already, if not for the pair of red eyes that watched them from underneath the lumafly lamp, a glow eerily unthreatened by the other source, as if in the eternal feud of lights, he permitted this respite of harmony only because he wasn’t a predator of healthy prey, and the lumaflies weren’t decaying yet.

“What an unkindness, to confine one as yourself in such a cramped place. My tent is quite tall, as I am certain you have seen.” This being just didn’t know how to fail, they supposed. Every time he got to their sights, he always brought up this same paradox of emotions that they coerced from the shade within like impurities being boiled off a salve. They were impurities, in a manner. He stood with terrible, yet charming nonchalance in his spot of choice underneath the lumafly lantern, unbothered by it. The red of his eyes glowed lazily, uncaring to compete in brightness with the item, and yet even diminished, they seemed like torches in their own right, brighter as they observed, hot as they felt those eyes bear of them.

_ “Troupe Master and Wandering King.”  _ They greeted, under the attention of a heat reserved for them and them alone. Grimm was currently painted in a cold, lumafly light, which treated him entirely different from the flames of his tent. It brought up the earthiness of his wings, a dark gray clean from dust, but also lacking any glimmer or reflection. The etchings of time, not staining but roughening at parts. Such a fate that wasn’t shared by the glossy, black horns that reflected luxuriously the light above, and framed like coal his brilliant eyes. A rounder face, framed by that devilish mothwing cloak, looked like a rosebud surrounded by thorns, the bait to a wicked, clawed, barbed trap. And the Hollow Knight felt precisely baited, every single time.

“Come to the light, my dear Knight.” When he called, the former Hollow Knight knew there was no spell binding their legs to compel. This Higher Being, housed within a Troupe Master every inch as regal as the Wandering King he was, was a being that concerned itself with Essence. From that realm it was born, from that realm it would always find its roots, the origin of his practices and the understanding of his world. They considered themselves particularly blessed, they supposed, from having been granted the chance of seeing both kinds of lights from very up close, observing their differences and similarities. Two lights, concerned with leadership and the mind of bugs, yet the places from which they drew their powers were different enough that they stood vastly apart. 

The Nightmare King was concerned with mind and soul only in an artistic manner. He liked his presentation to this world, liked his words, liked to see souls pass by their fingers and leave behind their last dreams, their last thoughts, in dreadful red flames that set his Heart aflame. He recognised that, perhaps even knew how to manipulate such. But it was not his field, nor was it what compelled them to move when beckoned, when a thin arm stretched from within that mothwing cloak and long fingers unfurled, palm just large enough to sit at the base of their shell. It was no call to their mind that made them move. It was a pull at their own heart, at the strings of essence, dabbling in the hopes and imaginary of any bug, tracing their recollections like the strings of a lyre. All Hallow knew was that indeed, they were quite ready for the next days to come. They might even have a bold but inspired idea, depending on what the Troupe Master intended by bringing up the height of his tent. The Nightmare Heart was a Higher Being of inner desires, a twin parallel to her reign of instincts, and leagues away from the Pale King’s reign of soul and mind. 

He was crude, wild, and unhindered by order and norm. This was by no means a life the former Hollow Knight could live, themselves. But despite it, they were easily bewitched by him. Perhaps  _ because _ of that other-worldliness, that novelty, they remained so impossibly charmed. Who would know? Not them, surely, all they knew was that they answered their summons diligently, with no dents whatsoever to their resolve. One careful step at a time, accompanied by the support of their great nail wherever their step might be the slightest bit off. Its tip found a resting ground before the Troupe Master, and their hand held firmly on it as they tilted their shell down to the offered palm, as if summoning the Knight for yet another dance, Grimm being the one offering such this time.

There were no waltzes for them in the waking world. Not anymore. But the Troupe Master seemed to wish to bless them with that same grace all the same, the same chivalrous invitation, unspokenly secure. As such, they allowed some weight on that hand by placing their shell on it, so that the moth could lower it to their sight. It was as if they were a mirror he ought to align with the light above, and did they feel precious under such attention. Perhaps for the first time, they entirely wished their father could not see them now. They doubted a loyal Knight should be anything near friendly to a foreign light, it would border heresy in that Hallownest of old. For much less, valorous fighters were pursued by pale-crested Knights, themselves included. Father would see their shell broken to pieces by Hegemol himself, at the heart of the City of Tears.

Well, no more. They chose to shed that and such expectations, and with such a reminder to don't feed such thoughts, they let themselves focus on the brilliant eyes above them, haloed by the lamp above as long, black fingers traced the surface of their shell with an artist’s meticulous strokes, seeking to find the slightest bump. Given they were hollow past this shell, the slightest superficial damage could be but the only sign of a deeper structural damage, and it was wise to seek those too, lest they break suddenly on their own. Those fingers were warm, but not harming nor melting them. The care for detail, however, that did melt them.  _ “Not a Knight. Not anymore.” _

“Wondrous development. Pray tell, if not Hallownest’s Hollow Knight, who is it that I rejoice to see walking still?” The Troupe Master spoke, unhurried, unconcerned, and most certainly taking his time with their shell. The former Hollow Knight supposed it was quite some development indeed, that had taken place between meeting the Nightmare King in dream and this moment now. They wondered vaguely if it was closed off to him the events that took place in the Abyss. Where there were dreaming minds and nightmares, the Nightmare King certainly must have some knowledge of the events surrounding those lives. But at the Abyss, where no light could reach, was it all sealed from his eyes?  _ “They call me their Hallow sibling, and I do welcome this new accolade. I met my siblings, one and all. It was long due.” _

Only Hallow was enough. They needed no other titles, not when they finally had something so intimate such as a name. Those were powerful things, they supposed. Marks on time, of the being that lived within their role, whichever that was. Hallow was the vessel that grew from Pure to Hollow and to this, broken but content with only being the sibling of two wonderful Wyrmchildren now at their post-mortem. Themselves hadn’t turned out well, they supposed. They wouldn’t be remembered for their strength, nor their liking for music, nor for their careful choices of words. They wouldn’t be remembered for their victory, perhaps wouldn’t even be remembered that they somehow outlived both lights, Pale King and Radiance. The sad tale history would tell, if at all, would be of one like Ghost yet naught. One picked, but faulty. One thought hollow, but instead hallowed by lights. It still felt more fitting than insisting on calling themselves a title that was a lie. 

“Hallow. It is fitting.” He said, and the former Hollow Knight wasn’t seeking any particular opinion from the Troupe Master, even less approval. They knew him to not be one deliberately cruel, although they wouldn’t put it above him to be devious should it entertain him. Nonetheless, the approval felt nice, an additional warmth to the inside of their shell. They would have closed off the sight of their last seeing eye, to bask only in touch and sound alone, should they not wish to witness and hoard the image before them so dearly in their heart. The Nightmare King was glorious, vibrant, unfathomably exquisite. The raw fire, the conflagration embodied.

But there was a terrible charm on the lantern that held a bit of that flame. The beauty and earthiness that composed him. The age to his cloak, and the sharpness of his fangs, a slight wrinkle forming at the edges of his mouth at each word he spoke. The warmth instead of the burn that his hands delivered. The care for the mundane, that Higher Beings did not seem to easily understand. Oh, the former Hollow Knight had a favourite, they supposed. One who, like them except entirely not like them, had been built to house something greater than shell and a meager soul. Yet he succeeded in everything where they had failed. They were that beautiful light, partaking in what they imagined must be a joined mind, behaving differently in the waking world because it was simply their nature to do so. Even Higher Beings were different in that world, truer to themselves, perhaps. Less alive, too. 

_ “Troupe Master. A question, if I may.”  _ Their thoughts reminded them, and they raised their head from the angle and position they were set in. They escaped the hands of the Wandering King, mournfully so, but the platting on the back of their neck relieved some of its stress, and they could finally look into those eyes from above, not blinded by the lumafly glow but only by those eyes and them alone. Beautiful and terrible indeed, as he grinned just the slightest, drawing sharper the lines of his jaw. Part sculptured by a God in his image, yet shaped by his time in these lands. Perfect works weren’t broken nor tainted, they thought; like Grimm, they must only improve with time. Increase in uniqueness, like a garden gone rogue, powerful and lively, unafraid of the shears of the one who sowed the seeds. Greater, because he was free. Their father had been right in that aspect, for there was truly nothing as beautiful and precious than a free, thinking mind. “Go ahead.”

What they meant to ask had its degree of importance. Not just once or twice did they think of that meeting in their dream with the Nightmare King, but rather recalled that conversation and waltz countless times. It was, after all, their environment. Certainly it might be the Nightmare King’s Kingdom now, both Hallownest and the dream realm, but they stood in Hallow’s city, at Hallow’s arcade of glass mosaics and gilded metal, like a great cage they felt most at home in. It was their environment, the light sovereign but themselves a creature of it, grown on courts and decree, at the metaphorical shadow of a glowing King. The language of courts was one they fancied themselves at the very least knowledgeable over, even if not too fluent to speak. They lacked practice for most of it, after all. And that too was their environment, as much as the arcade themselves reigned over.  _ “The words you have told me, in dream. Could you enlighten me on their meaning, for I have tried to make sense of them for what they are, but I still cannot.” _

They hadn’t expected the Troupe Master to be surprised by their request, but he so clearly was. He withdrew his hands from their suspension, bringing them back to the shelter within his cloak, his grin furling back into his features to give place to an adorning frown that further sharpened the angle of his mask’s bow. It was not anger that seemed to riddle him, no, and for that they were thankful. They hadn’t intended, or even considered, that their request would offend. But the surprise that seemed to have taken place was even more of a mystery. As if, somehow, those words were difficult for Grimm to make sense of, and like a dream’s intrigue, the Troupe Master had entirely forgotten their exactness once awake. Dreams were elusive things, after all, but they imagined that a being now sovereign in that domain would be free of the woes of the difficult transposition between worlds, and would be able to recall everything in perhaps more detail than themselves. His answer, however, fired the former Hollow Knight’s thoughts into another direction. “Those words are not mine, my dear, but from the Nightmare’s Heart. You do not seem to understand the difference."

And indeed, they didn't. Neither did they feel like the Troupe Master held that ignorance against them. Hallow fancied themselves a knowledgeable being, a trait that was as much a result of their innate curiosity, born alongside themselves, as it was of their upbringing. An scholar of this unexplained world, that never handed them meanings and answers clearly, but nonetheless they sought them in glances, in tablets left unattended, in conversations they weren't meant to eavesdrop. They understood the world through great observation, and yet, it only seemed to grant them enough knowledge to understand that they knew not enough of this world. They knew not how the Nightmare Heart worked with its King, as an example. They knew not how this could be relevant to their question, either, but the Troupe Master did not leave them wanting. "I am but one, in a lineage of many, and we all meet at the Nightmare's Heart, embodied as the Nightmare King. None of the knowledge of my predecessors is kept from me, yet I am not them. The Nightmare King can mean, say and see things I do not understand fully, if at all."

Hallow wondered how that must be like, to be in his place. To imagine that in themselves, at their heart like it had been at their father's own soul, there was a being not unlike the Lord of Shades, but composed of all those before them. Their father, their mother. The Wyrms and Roots before them. It sounded like one endless torment, having to carry their shame as their own, hear them mourn the death of their lineage at every passing moment. It already was ill and difficult to imagine it. Their empathy for the lights they loved would have been their immediate downfall in this scenario and they couldn't imagine fathom the thought of living like this. But also, they supposed Grimm must have a different relationship with them. Aware of one another, and the weight of their duty, they must be kinder to one another. Dare say, maybe they even loved their latest Troupe Master, like Grimm loved his wicked, arsonist son. Maybe when he communed with his King, what he felt wasn't unlike what Hallow felt at the Lord of Shades. Kinship, acceptance, and a priceless notion of safety. Alas, only one half of their family was that safe and kind. But it was by the unkind half that they were raised, and it was to them they had endured it all. The half that they loved, even now. 

_ "One thing I know are Kings."  _ They began, leading their attention back to the Troupe Master and the matter at hand. It mattered not what kind or brand of Higher Being the Nightmare King was, they all had a kind of demeanor that inspired sovereignty, and were deeply rooted into a most sacred nature, regardless of the aspect of this world that they wielded like their most proficient weapon. They all shared the proneness to leadership, to speak and be heard, and to be sought and loved, be through Essence, Soul or Thought. Their management of those below them were either fair or not, controlling or not, but always were they a ruler about it, unchallenged. And that kind of higher life, it just seemed to shape them into patterns, manners of deliverance. The Nightmare Heart had a King, one to roam this world and never be grounded for long. But a ruler, nonetheless, with all of one’s vagueness with words and their concealed intentions. Kings were indeed a breed they were acquaintances with.  _ “The Nightmare King’s words were measured. They would not have been given to me if there was not a purpose, some path hoped for me, should I heed by them.” _

Such was the talent of Kings, they supposed. Of seeing far more than any other, of knowing all the pieces on the scale, seeing them all even if they chose to not acknowledge them, nor look too closely. To be a King of any kind was to carry a crown they ought to balance at their horns at all times. It was to see the world as a massive tapestry they had the power to embroider, cut, destroy, improve and extend. With several needles at the ready, they could see the path ahead, the ones before, and to move a thread was rarely to satisfy it with answers, there was never need to tell it what part it would play in the massive brocade the monarch was weaving. But it ought to move, nonetheless, and in a specific manner so the pattern could play out. Often wordsmithing was the means they chose to put that needle in the correct place.

It was what they felt from those words. They had thought of them, let them brew and simmer at the void of their heart, and had concluded that regardless of the exact instruction, the intention behind those words were even more of a mystery. Regardless of the direction, that they also could not make much sense of, the Nightmare King had intervened in his own manner, had seen a need for it. Why? Past the miasma that the Higher Being so easily could enchant them with, through no known spell, they still could see little on these words. But they speculated greatly on their intention.  _ “In another era, this sudden intervention would be the telltale of the foresight of Hallownest’s ruler. The Nightmare King is the last King Hallownest will see. And what does he see?” _

Partially, to claim such was a heresy they should not be ever forgiven for. If this was that Hallownest of before, and they were still that Pure Vessel they once had been so close to becoming, they would have corrected that utterance with the addition that yes, the Nightmare King would reign momentarily all the Kingdoms in the brink of collapse. All but Hallownest. They would have chased anyone who had dared to state otherwise and put them out of their misery in a quick arch of their great, gleaming nail, all but a flurry of gleaming metal, gilded armour and wondrous cape. Hallownest would last eternal due to their sacrifice, that had been their father’s words, and as such, it was both fate and law, and inevitable as rain. 

Yet, they had failed, had they not? And Hallownest was not going to last eternal after all. And maybe the rain could be stopped if one was dedicated enough to patch the cracks hanging on the ceiling above, or simply chose to sink the city entirely by piercing into the lake above, letting the haunted city drown, finally. In comparison to that Pure Vessel, they were noW a broken, heretical thing, for feeding their thoughts and imagination in such a manner. Yet, they believed that in all of their profanity and madness, they too had never been so lucid. Free, in a manner, from part of their genuine ignorance of before and free of their partial hollowness, nor they doubted they felt and thought any less than any other higher mind in this Kingdom. The world too now was far more hideous to behold, embroidered with hurt and misdeed, like themselves. But that extra layer of dread, that dash of darkness in their own pale, gleaming world, also brought things impossibly more complex, and far more beautiful than any sterile beauty adorned for court. Looking into the fire within reddish eyes, they knew they were looking at the Hallownest’s last King, even if part of them would still like to deny it.

Grimm was the first to part from that gaze held and returned. He did so by only a slight shake of his head, that ruffled the fabric that bloomed around his head like the metal fangs that held on a lantern from above, or like the petals of some rare, foreign flower. Unlike any retainer, any aristocrat and any higher born bug, Grimm was a being of immense grace but untrained and unrestrained in his deliverance. That other stage, so entirely different from Hallow’s own and their own world, themselves a creature of theatres and narrow, luxurious opera houses, a world of musicians that became vicious diplomats when the lights were out and the curtains were drawn. Grimm’s stage however, was the entire world. A performer of the streets, a con artist should the need arise; in both worlds, when the show was over, artists were odd lovers and devious schemers. They had no doubt that like a proper King, Grimm could perform, and he most certainly could fool them should he wish to hold himself in place and make the former Hollow Knight hunt for meanings in his blank features. But that was not the Troupe Master, nay. He was not that King that lived within his eyes, it was not with him that Hallow was talking with. Grimm was entirely and wholly as untamed as a flame, with as many expressions as the repertoire of a grand actor, framing what might be a hundred more emotions underneath. A conflagration concealed in those eyes, as he chose his words. “Potential. In all of the vessels, but in you still.”

“My time is coming to an end as well, you know.” He spoke, but his words didn’t sound mournful, nor weighed heavily when laid upon the air. They sounded measured, and fittingly quizzical for the one they had adequately called King. His words were careful, if he feared that the former Hollow Knight would mourn him more than himself would, which might not be a wrong assumption. He brought those hands from within his mothwing cloak once more, and offering their palms up, Hallow did not refuse the beckon. Their shell came to rest against the Troupe Master’s palms once again. Their head took not a moment to rest itself long and angled right upon the offered support, like a tablet to be read, or infused with light. “Your sibling will inevitably meet their part of our contract, and I will join the Heart. My child will take my place, and be his own Troupe Master, of his own flavour and tastes.”

“Because of it, despite not understanding all of the Nightmare King and his words, I heed by them.” Those words indeed weighed on the former Hollow Knight’s heart. They never imagined they could share a kinship with the Troupe Master in this most foul of aspects; them both had a limited time in this roaming world, before they would be part of a greater but distant thing, and the woes of living would soon not belong to them. It was a strange reflection, as if they were gazing into a reddened, warped mirror. Themselves had never fully lived, nor felt great joy in doing so, yet they mourned it all terribly, wrestled death like a deadly lover, in between welcoming it and this conflict, and yet being terribly wounded by it.

But not Grimm. Any effort applied in the stillness of his features seemed to be on their behalf, rather than on his own. He had conformed to it, perhaps even welcomed it. As if he hadn’t seen so much more of the world than any other living bug, and didn’t have things for himself to love, things himself to wish to hold on, and stay a little longer for. That child of his, if nothing else. Another Troupe Master would roam the world, with a Nightmare King burning within those eyes… But the world would be a dreadful thing without Grimm. Not for anything else that could be taught and learnt, not for anything else that could be replaced. Roles could be fulfilled, but there couldn’t be another like him. He couldn’t be replaced, simply because he was  _ him _ . “We are in this business of burning fathers and feeding children for a very long time. If he says you should stop seeking a Light, I add my voice to the choir.”

His fingers traced their shell as if it was an exquisite lyre. Wherein his features were held to neutrality and concern, his hands betrayed the meticulously sculptured facade. They traced the outer arch of their shell with the carefulness of one testing the smoothness of an instrument’s polish. His fingers ran against the plains as if feeling the roughness of strings, seeking in the texture the slightest crack or dent, or perhaps seeking the whisper of a melody unsung, that they could pluck out of them. What made the Troupe Master like them enough to hand them this precious care, they knew not, and they were not willing to ask, nay. They, for once, only assumed the best and let it be so. Their heart had another ache to address, and it was brought up by words in the same tune of always. Unnervingly speaking of dread and glory in the same tune, they were a mournful instrument, they supposed.  _ “Is it not what I am doing? Is it not enough?” _

For they had done it in a manner, had they not? In their own interpretation, they had improved. They had visited the Abyss, and communed with that half of them. They saw their mother, saw her with different eyes, and let the lights blind them a little less with the hurt he learnt from her, accepting that they would love them forevermore but they needn’t to live dragging the carcass of their hopes on their shoulders. They thought less, of the unfairness brought by both Old Light and Pale, and thought more of what they could do. What they would do, as soon as their sibling was up and walking once more. The list kept growing, and they supposed they would have to start cramming things if they hoped to don’t be caught off guard at some point with the most important topics yet to fulfill. They believed they were set off in a wondrous path indeed, and from Grimm they had hoped only for confirmation.

They didn’t have it. Instead, those fingers led themselves further up, to the inner barbs of their horns, scouting where they grounded themselves to make sure that there wasn’t any sort of crack lacing itself around those either. Grimm’s silence, even if it lasted for only a moment, was a grave enough sign. He might not understand what the Nightmare King thought and meant, but he doubted that the King wasn’t watching them right now, his heart and Grimm’s one single patch-worked wonder, and a pitiful denial needn’t thought or rationality to be transmitted. A look and a sigh was language enough. “...I simply do not know, Hallow. Forgive me. The talent of foretelling is not one to predict how the play goes, but rather to interpret what the actions backstage precede. He sees, but to foretell is not an art we know. That is a Wyrm’s talent.”

Grimm knew not, but he must be feeling the same looming weight the former Hollow Knight felt in their depths. That knowledge that whatever they were doing might be better, yes, but it was not enough. Something was amiss, something great that the Nightmare King had seen but could not explain. The Higher Being had only but passed on the key onto them, and told them to seek the door in a wasteland of dunes, endless as far as the eyes could see. There was no further direction. Nothing. And they wondered why, truly. If these weren’t instructions to achieve what they already had, to buy themselves a bit more of time and perhaps enough level-headedness that they could give themselves a few days more of this odd life, then what else was there for them? What other potential did they conceal within broken body and soul? If it was a particular path, had they already walked past the crossroads to it? If this wasn’t the right path, what else could it be, and what else could have been? 

There was no other outcome, they knew. There was no use musing on that, and it would only serve to send them back to their starting point, to the very moment they had stepped out of the Temple of the Black Egg and fully understood the situation themselves and Hallownest were at. That dreadful moment, where they gazed upon themselves, their surroundings, and their sister offered them the news they dreaded to hear, but in a way, already had known. Hallownest was gone beyond salvation. They had known that since that moment. But if their sister and sibling wanted to wrestle against the inevitable for its last days, then who was Hallow to say no? Their father had chosen them, but they were no great spear to slay a moth with. They tuned the instruments well and knew all compositions, but they were no hearth to a grand orchestra. Hallow had always been their own, alof, singular thing. A soloist, native of courts, and always so willing to take on requests, written in folded paper and dropped at their feet. 

Their siblings wanted them near. It wasn’t even a request, but rather a hope. Seeing them in the crowd, all discrete smiles and undivided attention, they knew they wanted to see them play something for them. Anything of the musician’s own choosing would do, they just wanted them to play, and smile their way as they did. And Hallow knew what to play, would do so with glee. In a similar manner, they were willing to accompany them, from the dusk of the world and into the eternal night. The impossible had always been an expectation set upon the former Pure Vessel and Hollow Knight, and they always did their best to deliver it. Even if they always, inevitably failed.

This moment wasn't any different.

There wasn’t time for them to react when Grimm’s fingers, as gentle and delicate as raindrops, pressed against a spot at the tip of one of their horns, the farthest extremity of their right side, and with such a delicate touch, the once-sharp point budged down, meeting the ground with a daft sound after it slid off the former Hollow Knight’s arched back. It was like an open wound, digging through so many layers, that common bug would just bleed off entirely, bleed off blood, organs, ripped tendrils and marrow. Their entire shell felt as if it was budging, cracks making their way from beneath and when they ruptured at the surface, it was spread into many directions, ungrounding shards and brittle pieces from above that came out like ash, like molt. “Hallow, dear...”

The quietness of his intonation didn’t mask in the slightest the guttural reaction that the Troupe Master sprung in. They felt the vicious shake of his hands as his claws laced themselves around the horn that now seemed entirely compromised, cracks further stretching down towards the already compromised eye. That entire half wasn’t going to hold, and at first, the former Knight didn’t understand how the damage was still spreading. Took them a while to realise they were heaving. Their arm shook, hand holding still at the handle of their great nail, but the handle seemed much further up than they had first thought. They were lowering, they noticed. Their legs were trembling, and failing. Their carapace felt like hot metal, at each pull and push, each fraction of their weight added to them, made it closer to bending. “...What have I done? Stay down, We can try and tie this up.”

The Troupe Master muttered, and dare say, he even sounded hopeful. Vaguely, the former Hollow Knight wondered if every Kingdom was granted this. A place at the Troupe Master’s heart, even if only for a moment. To have him so enraptured in the story, that it was his lithe but strong arm that they felt against their half-eaten chest, slowing down their descent to their knees. It was his hand that they felt holding half of their head in one piece, even as it began discarding pieces of itself that became loose. The motion that kept breaking it wasn’t only their heaving, their shaking, but also the void within that now bled between Grimm’s fingers, down their eye sockets in thin tears. Did every Kingdom’s scapegoat elicit that growl at the Troupe Master’s throat, or were they special? 

_ “I…”  _ They said, but their wordsmithing failed them. It was an elusive art after all, and they didn’t hold that against themselves too hardly. Even now, the sound of their own words remained the same - this distant, somber thing, that for a singular moment, sounded suitable for the occasion. Fainter too, for if it was their mind and soul that permitted Grimm to talk to them, Higher Beings of all sorts being able to achieve such, Hallow was starting to falter on their side of the bargain. Their knees meet the ground, finally, their weight being placed on their haunches as their single hand remained tightly woven around their nail, an unwavering grip that they would hold on to at the last moment. 

Truth was, they were quite done with this. It was not dreadful sadness that washed through them as a familiar reaction, having been through similar woes various times in the days before. It was not mourning and sheer terror that laced their heart this time. The visit to the Void offered them a slight comfort on the matter, making them unafraid of that inevitable descent they would eventually do, and join the Lord of Shades like a sung and promised hall, where they would get to tell their tales to an endless crowd of valorous kin, whom perhaps might feel inspired enough by their tales to try their own hand at the world above. They did not fear that ending, but didn’t hope to hurry it. What they felt now was something she had taught them, and taught them well. An unbridled hatred, stunted only by the shock and their growing unresponsiveness. They had been robbed blind, the two of them in different manners, and both equally left to rot and be forgotten.

All of their soul and mind was holding on those pieces of shell right now. Their shade within, spasmodic and panicked, shared of their desperation and was attuned to that singular goal. They weren’t going to let go of it just yet, they refused. Hallow wasn’t like their siblings, the Ghost and Daughter of Hallownest. They didn’t harbour impossible faiths in their heart except the ones instilled by lights, and to live briefly had been a somewhat recent idea, that they were still working on, tending to at their heart so that it would prosper instead of rotting, like some particularly indecisive fern. They didn’t have too much faith in it in the first place. But apparently, while they lacked the quantity of faith to blind themselves from the terminality of this, they had just enough faith for it to hurt.  _ “...There is no way to tie this up.” _

Whether they spoke or rambled, was up to interpretation. They felt Grimm’s hand leave their chest carefully, before he bailed a hand at their cloak. His delicately clawed fingers dug on the fabric, making just a small tear at the hem so that he could rip a piece off the rotten cloak entirely. Just long enough they supposed that they could bring it around their horn and tie it off. It wasn’t holding back the void from bleeding through the cracks, however, and they knew it must be poorly soaking it up, only slowing down the tears that made their way down their shell. Their maw felt loose from their shell, parting itself slightly every now and then, as if they longed for a breath. They couldn’t breathe, not even whistle the smallest sound, air not something they could push or pull through there. From the gap, their essence bled down instead, to pool at the dirt below and sink quickly with its weight.

_ “Whatever the Nightmare King hoped for me to do, appears to be too late now.” _ They gathered their focus to say. They had been warned, that much was undeniable. The Nightmare King had warned them, given them the key to prevent this, they were sure. They just never found the path. Their sight was darkening at the only eye they had left. The fringes were dark, and yet it didn’t dim the brightness of the lumafly lamp above, nor the now raging fire in Grimm’s eyes, but it did effectively make them miss the details they were so enamoured of. No more were they distinguishing the elegant wings on the edge of the Troupe Master’s eyes, nor the sharpness that took over his shell’s mask when he frowned so gravely.

These details that painted the world so interestingly for the former Hollow Knight were fading, and that might be the only thing they mourned. For themselves, besides the routinary self-pity, they found that brilliant half of theirs springing up as if waking from deep carceri and unwilling slumber. They knew too well that she was gone, and yet, it might as well be as if she was only but quiet within themselves, regarding them with that silent treatment they weren’t pleased but not entirely ungrateful for. That part of them, one fourth perhaps, that they carried on their head and their heart and yet pretended it wasn’t here, a part which took such a crucial role in turning them into  _ this. _ Her. Her and her hatred, burning where they had numbed and hollowed down enough so that there was only her alive. In the fertile ground in which they decayed, only her would bloom. 

They had killed every light in their heart and it was no surprise she was the last to stand, this sickeningly sweet anger that bristled within them, and they didn’t even know towards what it was directed. Not their siblings, yet, everyone and everything. They wouldn’t have minded to have passed away before, when they saw no purpose ahead of themselves. They had one now, they had a couple more performances to give and for once, they were entirely and desperately willing. Had they perished before, they wouldn’t have complained, anytime before would have been a good time as any to bid this world their farewell. But not now. 

_ “...May I ask a favour?” _ They spared themselves just enough room in their mind to transmit the thought up to the Troupe Master, whose touches became numb just like their own legs, and they no longer could feel his fingers tying ribbons around his horns, void staining his carapace and making them reflect the pale light above no more. He was close enough to warm, a vicious scowl adorning his features in a manner so terribly reminiscent of her own, and they wondered if he looked like this when he fought. They only had half a mind - wise, proud, pale half - to prevent themselves from asking that of the Troupe Master. To die in battle would be better than this, dying with their fingers laced around their great nail’s handle not as one gripped a weapon, but like one gripped an elderly’s walking stick, clinging to the only thing that kept them from being swallowed by plant life and moss.

Grimm met their eyes. Unreadable as he must intend it, or perhaps a conflagration of subtle cues that were just too many for one that currently, couldn’t spare enough thought. The air around him carried a scent like fire and like incense, all exotic, priceless and unique things that burned. They would have adored to have such an end, if they had a choice. But there weren't many. There wasn’t much room for them to think, they were aware, but there was a thought that made itself at home in their minds and it did not let go. On a nearby house, their sibling was molting, and they had given them their word on a Knight’s oath that they would guard that respite, come whatever may. Were they worthy of that title, they would crawl and slump against that doorway, and take on the example of brave and valorous Dryya, to guard them even in death.

But they were not a Knight. They had forsaken that title, and in a manner, it too invalidated that oath from the very beginning. If they had the slightest bit of honour, they would see it through either way. They had enough of a code of honour to see that through, but alas, all these forms and expectations, roles to wear and nail unto one’s carapace, they knew them all, recited them all, had worn them all. And knew, better than any other, that what they did best was no favour to the living or for those that remained, but rather a favour to the dead. If they held on their word, perhaps they would pass on with ease, a sense of fulfillment to grace them ephemerally in their last moment, but it wouldn’t alter the grief that would take over their sibling. Perhaps would only hurt them further to see them holding on to their oath, amplifying it with the thought of this perhaps being preventable, if they hadn’t molted when they did. 

What use were oaths if they stood in the way of protecting the people they loved? Worthless, they would say. They were not their father, they were not a Wyrm. And for this fickle moment, they were utterly glad that they weren’t. It was where they drew the line, they supposed, between adoration and inspiration, what they loved, and what they wished to be, themselves. And they knew to what side their own scale tipped towards, when love and duty were weighed. The difference was minimal, but clear for themselves. When Grimm nodded quickly in response to their question, not only they already knew what their request was, they also knew where they wanted to go. To perish somewhere else, and be buried by the wind, blending with the environment so they wouldn’t ever be found. 

_ “Bury me at the Kingdom’s Edge.”  _ They said, and they saw Grimm’s scowl deepen, something they hadn’t thought possible. They wondered if he would deny them, then. It would not have been a completely unreasonable outcome, no. The dying didn’t have much room to make requests, and most of them passed with them unheeded by, unheard. It affected little of the manner in which they passed away. Themselves wouldn’t be any different. But nonetheless, Grimm raised a hand, and wiped it against his own mothwing, streaks of black crossing the texture in a dreadful finger painting, that one would loathe to see stain. With his fingers clean, a quick snap of them crossed the air, sounding heavy and sharp.

The lumafly lantern’s glow paled in comparison to the staves that sprung from what seemed like a wound in this world. Transposed from another world unto this, they stood in their unmatched design, unlike anything they had ever seen and harbouring red flames that burned ever-bright. Along them, floated their wielders, of identical masks and strange bodies, clad in fabric that seemed to wrap them up in bindings like the shroud corpses were wrapped in before burial. Their eyes, burning bright, left no doubt on the origin of their powers, that too granted them the skill to hover, weightless, as all creatures who were more dream than being tended to do. In their case, nightmare. 

The clearing in the middle of Dirtmouth got much brighter, with a circle of red torches burning with little mercy for the few, scarce, pale and faint lumafly lights that still littered this fading town. Their conflagration lasted a moment only, before it faded entirely as if it had never been there, back into the wound they carved into this world. The town’s source of light went quickly back to being those pale, aged lamps, hanging by well-made posts that were outlasting the Kingdom itself. The only witness of this meeting remained being only the charged lumaflies, who would tell none of what they had seen, even if they could somehow comprehend what they had seen. Under that lamp post, a once brilliant great nail only but faintly reflected the faint light. Below it there were pieces of shell and shards of molt, dusting the dirt and soiling themselves in the drops of sinking blackness, inky waters that were already retreating towards its crib and tomb, the well that was both its prison and it’s sole safe place. Both evidence of this event would soon be covered by the dust the wind carried. 

Whenever the Ghost of Hallownest left their abode, they would see naught but their great nail left, tip buried on the floor, close to the bench and the lamp nearby. It perhaps would hurt less, to know the former Hollow Knight had some kind of agency in the manner in which they left, instead of bound by their doorway. They hoped their sibling would understand their reasoning, whenever they felt Hallow’s voice join the vast choir their sibling coordinated.

If not, patience. They weren’t particularly happy about it all either. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its long. If you are irritated, then I am pleased. You're feeling what Hallow is feeling rn, fucking dying again? In case you didn't notice, its a purgatory. That's the whole point. Worry not tho. This time I really killed them, I promised. This is the last time I pull y'all through this. 
> 
> Send a message in Instagram or Discord, I love being cyberbullied. (@riptaide or Herja#8664)


	8. Death of a Wyrm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, look, its me posting again. Remember when I said that we are now a lawless land of no deadlines? Sometimes it can mean this: me posting sooner than a week. Astounding, I know. 
> 
> I am not in a hurry, mind you. But I feel like my brain is dulled - I can no longer tell what is good writing and what is bad. But I feel like this slightly more dynamic and shorter writing, focused more on dialogues and actions, it is being well received. Let me know if you prefer this in comparison to chapter 3 and 4.

They threaded a pale wasteland they had only but heard of, witnessed vaguely in blurs and visions that didn’t belong to themselves, but rather to the many, many others who like them, regardless of strength and resistance, time wore down on them, like it wore through every stone like a trickle of water, and too they were part of that intricate tapestry of dreams she wove. Through other eyes, sometimes they saw other parts of this Kingdom, some just like they had last saw, almost unaltered by this abandonment and infection that plagued the fading lands. At others, the Hallownest of old, even if most of them were only acquaintances to them through rumour, they knew they shouldn’t look as they saw. Many unfamiliar faces dotted their sight, visions she permitted them to gaze upon through the vast mirror on their mind. One that they could recall well was circle of Mosskin, vibrating in adoration for the golden deity who dawned in their dreams and either would inspire them violence as her ultimate retribution against those she saw as false Gods, or they would simply dream of her too strongly, and like all mortals who reached for lights greater than what they could grasp, their bodies simply wilted while their minds were caught in exhilaration.

Hallow had never seen the outcome to what happened to that circle. In fact, the owners of said dreams rarely repeated themselves, every reflection that they witnessed was a fray of a greater tale they never saw beginning, and very rarely witnessed the end. They never found out what happened to the infected caterpillar, who guarded a plaza at the Queen’s Gardens and awaited her return, easy slumber granting the child dreams more and more livid, as well as the so hoped gift of flight. They never saw what became of the Elder, who arrived at Hallownest and saw in the sick mantids and wanderers the culmination of his oath to aid and heal, but the infection made him see enemies in all but in themselves.

They didn’t see their endings, but they doubted that those were glorious tales. Even now, they found it in themselves some room to slip in a prayer under memory of light for their own outcome, bitter, but in a manner better than the one many others had found. Littered with woes, pains, but not entirely void of joy or love. There were worse tales to tell, they supposed. How many had died for her infection, be it on the despair that preceded its full breakout, be it in the chaos that was unleashed once it arrived, or be it in the leftovers now where there was as many confused survivors as there was fresh corpses littering the roads - may the survivors find for themselves a better fate now, with the freedom they had in their hands. 

Hallownest was waking from its long, dark miasma and finding its body not unlike the former Hollow Knight’s own. It had slept for a long while, and dreamt sickly, with fever dreams brought in by awoke delusions, haunting it's unconsciousness with the threat of dawn. It woke now, and there was no threat of such anymore, only this endless night that already had settled itself, and it was up to Hallownest to ready itself for it, while its body was still warm. Like themselves, the Kingdom was falling apart at the fringes, not keeping up with their mind that despite all the ailments they carried, all bittersweet memories and tainted sorrows, they still had it in them to make their last stand. They dared to imagine that it wasn’t only in themselves that they could feel it, but also perhaps it reverberated in the air, like the ambiance in a busy ballroom, they felt as if they weren’t alone in that wish to stand one last time and live until the very end. Free, finally. From King, from Goddess. And as they threaded into the endless night for an end, no more that everlasting stasis, they wanted to do so as they had lived. Proud, eerie, hopeful and gloomy, both.

They wouldn’t have that. An end often came without warning, sometimes even daring to deliver itself when one thought that all loose ends were tied, and new things were ready to bloom - it was then that it chose to arrive, always abiding by its own time and no other. Then, when they thought themselves finally on the right path, it was when terminality chose to display itself for them, ending the pages of tome regardless of what moment of their tale they were still writing. This was not a conclusion that they walked proudly in, nail in hand, and their head held high. It was not a mercy killing either, a rest themselves laid down for and resigned to never waking. Their end was sudden and disruptive, unfulfilling in every manner, and they thought themselves robbed. Not an emotion originary from themselves, but from her.

She, who would look at her once-Kingdom and her dreadful fate, caught within despised construct and disregarded youth, and she would wallow in her own miseries, in her own manner of choice. Oh, she mourned alright. In hatred she discarded all of her twinkling tears, in their ears she howled all of her woes, in their body and mind, she inflicted her vengeance, as a means of liberating herself from what her fate imposed upon her. A proud, resentful Goddess, but also a particularly nurturing one, from a time that preceded their father’s own light. How their feud had changed her, how she loathed that change. How she loathed that her dreams had become unwelcome, and that her love was turned into hate, like a rose bush left unattended and now all it produced were cruel thorns, no remnants of the beauty she once delivered. She mourned it all, and she was done weeping in silence, praying for a love that would not return. 

Time worked her into them, seeped those emotions and thoughts unto her vessel, but also worked their own into her, enough that they began understanding her. One another. Her entitlement to Hallownest wasn’t entirely far-fetched. Her envy wasn’t completely unjustified, not when she saw the moths she created as her betraying kin, seduced by artifacts of another light who simply made his way into the minds of all residents as if Hallownest had no light before. The Pale King’s blessing was genuine and harmless, but not in the manner in which he bestowed it. He shone, harsh and invasive. A thousand promises, suddenly placed in the hearts of the easily impressionable. She knew that the moths weren’t truly to blame for following that light, in their place, could another have done any different? Abandoned by them, abandoned by all, she too was left to tatters. And she was done harbouring all that hurt into herself. 

It didn’t justify her actions. But they understood. They loathed that they understood her all too well, for now that their body fought for every single second they could cling to, as their blackened limbs drew arcs on the dunes of molt, trailing Void behind themselves and clinging pale specks along their wet carapace, it was a mirror of her hatred that they felt fueling their steps. It was her hateful tears that they felt swelling on their sight, blurring the already fading vision, and they understood now her anger when she would wipe those off, as if the world wasn’t worthy of witnessing what it had done to her, done to them. It was with her violence that their feet found the ground at every step, and to walk it was to inflict upon the ground a mirrored pain that themselves suffered. 

They understood her. And despite themselves clinging to all good things that they had ever learned; them trying to be all the good things their father taught them, all the good things their siblings taught them, it was her problematic bitterness towards the end that would accompany them into another life. For they were indeed such an infection, they supposed. Mattered naught how they felt towards the Kingdom, they were still vessel of its greatest regrets and awful distastes. It was what they were, scapegoat of all woes, bad mouthed in life, forgotten in death. To be sealed and pushed away. Mattered not the pride they had on their shell and the love in their heart, mattered not their genuine intentions, and their good-bearing hopes. Like her love, it mattered not. As the curtains were drawn, they were not chosen to perform again. Hallownest would not have them there for its grand finale, and like the moths, it was not a conscious and collective decision, they knew. But for them, sufferers of this rejection, of this misdeed, they hurt as if it was.

_ “I’m absolutely enraged.” _ They muttered, the strangled howl in her voice something they could feel laced, tangled in their throat and gaping maw, like it had been once, like a cough they held on in their Temple for an unmeasurable era. Yet nothing but mouthfuls of their liquid blackness left it when they opened their mouth, dripping like their eyes in a diseased drool. They wouldn’t be making any steps if not for the being at their eaten half, who kept an arm around them and with his shoulder against the plating at their breast, added his strength to the former Hollow Knight’s final walk.

In contrast to the darkness threatening at the rims of their eyesight and the intense, golden hatred that flared in their heart, the landscape was eerily calming. Fossilised stone here had a different design, depicting at parts a massive body of ribbed mass, fairly wider than they were tall, that seemed to simply have embroidered this mountainside with its corpse. Sections of it seemed to emerge from stone like Unn’s body, that sometimes arched above the waterline in a leisurely, tiresome stretch. Where it ended was anyone’s guess, but they could see where it began. A crowned maw stood ahead, hollowed like a circular archway that led into a temple that, like the Palace, no longer awaited at the other side.

The wind blew strongly here. It drew patterns on the dunes of molt, painting gray stone in the gentlest, purest white, that seemed to be piled and organised in the wind’s own design, while the leftovers were channeled into caverns and columns to be ejected far above the Kingdom’s Edge. Like slow, delicate rain, the specks of molt fell down slowly like their Lady’s own cascading molt, biding their time in a dance before they once again layered the ground below. The entire place was a statement of grandeur, and their own irrelevance before beings much greater than themselves. The Wyrm’s body, in its death, created a sterile, grievous garden, and its last breath still drew forevermore into Hallownest. It wouldn’t simply cease being so, even if that great form of before had been shed.

The metamorphosis of Wyrms were mysterious things. Mythological, in a manner. Gods of Civilisation, all, few of them Pale, all of them lights in their own manner. A kin that followed their purpose forevermore, and tended to fail before they could entirely succeed and leave another generation of themselves to crowd the earth. The Pale King had been adamant to make it different, this time. A well-kept secret; they were the last, and if not them, then none was left that could. Hallownest was named after such a promise. The nest that would harbour that brood, and themselves, Hallow, blessed and cursed, the one that would be bound to guard such nest from another light’s harm.

Promises. It perhaps was a Wyrm’s curse to, like his cursed progeny, to fail at all that they were tasked with. For not even their promise to their sibling they would keep, not even their most simple hopes they would manage to see through. All they had left was this, the naturality in which her rage possessed them. She who taught them to scream, taking pleasure in breaking every statement of the Pale King about that cursed youth. She, who taught them how to feel, how to behold the past and learn from it, dally in misery and permit it to fuel their future when nothing else was done. She, Radiance, who they wished they wouldn’t have to think of again, it was as if they were still bound to her, and here where they least wanted their thoughts to turn to her, they did. “Befitting of Her vessel.”

Grimm spoke, his head lowered as he focused on the path ahead that the former Hollow Knight only but barely dictated with the direction they took their own steps. Their barbed feet sunk deeply into the dunes, making the route even more difficult to bear, but their time was limited, and they couldn’t spare a detour. Each step they felt less, and saw less. And beyond that massive fossilised maw, a dune stood, molt spiraling on its surface as the wind brushed over its side as if sweeping the spot off a layer that mustn’t be there. Beyond it, the caverns seemed to stretch forevermore, but were sealed by the endless molt. There was nowhere farther from Hallownest, and in their current state, there wasn’t much choosing they could do either. Grimm had insisted that they would walk into their grave, and he hadn’t spared efforts on such demand; he had been aiding him on that himself, their convoy accompanying, carrying torches. On lips concealed by masks, they doubted not that some kind of spell might be sitting there like a scab, waiting for a cue to raise itself, and it would be cast. They would be carried if need be, fueled by scarlet flame if one must. 

The Troupe Master knew them too well, they supposed. Not entirely, but well enough. Those red eyes looked into them and saw it all. Her rage, and their love for their progenitor. Their title and hopes of a Knight, but unfitting to the role like a Prince. Maybe he too saw the motive behind choosing here to die, of all places. In the tales about Wyrms, very few that they had heard from their father himself, they told of the metamorphosis of Wyrms. Where death was always an end for a motive, a change for something greater and foretold, that would make it all worth it. Their carcasses remained and aged like the milestone of an era, a reminder of wilder, darker times, for bugs in their enlightenment would come here and witness it, muse in those harder times they were blessed for not having endured. Perhaps by seeing how far one has come, they found hope in the path ahead.

Was it too selfish that they wanted to be part of it too? Just a small addition to this pale scenery; none would know that their shell rested and decayed underneath those dunes, and yet, they minded it not. A prayer to the massive Wyrm, now hollowed and gone, in part they hoped would be for them too. For her too, in a manner. For all those robbed of grandeur, and left nothing behind besides a desperate emotion, hate, hope, grief, that seemed to spin the cogs of this greater mechanism that spun the tapestries of civilisations. They couldn’t all be Wyrms, but many like them died with such hopes of leaving something greater for the future. Their tomb would not be the Abyss that welcomed them, for they could have chosen it, but it was not where their heart lay. Their tomb would not be their Temple and her altar, for she was gone and themselves too walked off finally from that battle. Their tomb would be this; reminiscing to the things they should not be, but so strongly were; heartfelt, hopeful, proud. Their father’s child, unrecognised and unmourned but nonetheless, they were his.

_ “I would have been thankful for a few more days.” _ They muttered, the dune growing in height before them, making the walk a climb, and as such, both their feet and Grimm’s sank further on it. It was nearing the Troupe Master’s knees, yet he was yet to utter a complaint. As they bled unto his mothwing cloak, staining the gray and crimson into an unreflective black, he still complained not. Instead, between his eyes, a grave frown weightened the inner drawn of his eyes. Those eyes didn’t meet their only-seeing one often in this short but laboured walk. They didn’t blame the Troupe Master for that avoidance.  _ “...I would have liked to tell them goodbye. I would have liked to dream, and ask the Nightmare King’s blessing.” _

“What for?” That caught the moth’s attention. It did not alleviate his scowl, but it lifted a little the wings on the outer edges of his eyes. The former Pure Vessel had seen countless times the paintings Lurien brought to the White Palace, many of them rare in colour or monochromatic when wielding a palette varied from a singular base tone. They mourned how the times didn’t clash in this particular manner, having never crossed Watcher and Troupe Master in good terms, resulting in the impossibility of them ever seeing what sort of piece the Watcher could have created when beheld with such sharp, dangerous beauty. It was by all means befitting of his monochromatic talent, the manner in which warm colours danced in his features, how the angle of his mouth told stories before his words ever could. Showman of whatever play, they supposed that they would have adored to see him perform, but wouldn’t have paid attention to the piece. 

_ “To court you.” _ It didn’t suffice for them to simply see, they supposed. Like a poet, they could be bewitched by the fall of raindrops over glassworks, and could find different manners to adore the world that surrounded them and the elements it was adorned with. But with Grimm, to behold wouldn’t have been enough. In another time, and another life, they would have been more than willing to announce their intentions, at a balcony with its doors ajar, to an entire Court below gathered for a lavish ball. Their intentions were clear, they were a Knight caught in no devious spell besides one of their own making.

May they join Ogrim in his joy that they finally understood. There was an arm they would like to take all evenings when their own was not taken by nail or shield. There was a figure whom they would like to lead into all balls and leave when he did, no party worth staying when he was elsewhere. There was a being who in presentation, lured with colour and dance, and they were willing to take their time, as long as it took, to meet the being within, the intricacies of his mind and heart, his qualities and faults, and see themselves bewitched twice over. To court was a compromise of hiding naught, and prioritising no other battle as much as this one. They would have liked to fill their last days with that too.  _ “For the little time we might have had.” _

For while they might be transparent for Grimm, whose red eyes certainly could see all of them, for themselves Grimm was yet a mystery for the most part. They knew not what flowers stole the Troupe Master’s breath, nor if there was any that could do so in the first place. They knew him to be a wondrous dancer, but which ones he preferred was up to guesswork. They knew not of the places he visited and the stories he had learned, especially those that he considered most important and the most life-changing to witness. They didn’t dare to assume all that they could learn would be so particularly enchanting - many of them might be naught but a minor detail, unimpressive or odd at times, but if it followed the pattern of what they had already seen from the scarlet flame, then they had nothing to fear. Everyday’s discovery would be its own reward. What they had seen was enough to make them want more, and they were willing to dedicate themselves to that rare flower, welcome whatever blossom it chose to unfurl with time.

Time that they did not have, no. It had always been brief, they supposed. Their few days that they had thought they still had ahead, and the days it would take for their sibling to complete the ritual and whatever it required. Not a long time, not nearly enough to see the fruits of such harvest. Nonetheless, would it be worthy all the same. To forsake, for a few days, the entirety of time, and treat their while here as if they had all the time in the world. Nurture what they would never see grow. They wouldn’t have minded it, in fact, would have been immensely blessed to have it. But like they wouldn’t get to bid their siblings a proper farewell, this was not something they would have. 

Grimm’s silence stretched long enough that they wondered if they were facing a rejection. They couldn’t spare a glance his way, no. Not when they knew that the dune was becoming too hard to climb, and this was the farther they could go. They tapped the Troupe Master’s arm so he would let go of them, and as he did, they permitted themselves to kneel. The dune reached another couple leagues onward and upwards, but they wouldn’t make it any farther up. Here, the wind ran sideways, and was already covering the tracks of their steps. It blew molt against their bleeding body, dotting it in white as they laid down on their wounded side, the turn on their back even less graceful.

There was no particular light here but Grimm’s eyes. Behind him, the crowned maw of the Wyrm stood like a portal between two worlds, one that they had crossed and had no way back from. Their back sunk on the soft molt, and their legs allowed themselves to stretch themselves over the ever-revolving dune. They feared that if they relaxed their spine finally and their horns met the white mountainside below, they wouldn’t ever raise it again, so they did not, even if the weight felt now so horribly taxing, their trembling and unstable body shaking with the effort. “....How  _ dare _ you.”

Grimm accused, but nonetheless he knelled on their side, their stained mothwing cloak a sharp contrast against the environment that like themselves was painted in black and white. His fingers met theirs at their neck, where they had only but began grasping the buttons of the cloak that felt like it was strangling them. They knew that feeling, not unlike the discomfort of a molt, their body wanted to melt unto itself and the ground below, and anything that stood in its way, anything that touched it, felt like an amplified itch, uncomfortable enough to despair. His fingers were far more dexterous than their own, something they were thankful for. They mourned that no longer they could feel their warmth. “...How dare you, making it sound appealing that hideous and boring courtships of the Pale aristocracy.”

Not a rejection, after all. They would have laughed, if they could. They supposed they would have one last bittersweet gift before they passed. The awareness, as terrible as it was wonderful, that should they have lived those last days, Grimm would have accepted their courtship. Would have accepted to be the target of their attention, and spare them a little bit of his own as well to permit the once Knight, never Prince, the chance of meeting the moth underneath titles and beyond scarlet flame, and fill their last days with only wondrous discovery and his warm words. Apparently, they had heeded by the Nightmare King’s words after all. It was not a light they sought, none, not anymore. They sought time. It was all that they needed, whatever amount as long as it was more than what they had. There wasn’t any use in these pleas they had no voice to cry out. 

_ “I liberate you from such fate.” _ They said, their head no longer being able to sustain itself, it rested on the molt below. To try to lift it was to shake their entire body, see their own carapace tremble and bend, every second more malleable and bleeding from its very own surface, like perspiration. Its own weight was becoming harder and harder to bear. So while they still could, they lifted their hand while Grimm worked on untying the fabric from their horns. No bindings in death. Grimm truly could read them too well.

Their fingers found the curve of the Troupe Master’s sculptured cheek. A little below his eye, a little above his mouth. His face was a heart shaped mask that they could not help but to feel that it had been branded in their mind, like the embroidery at the tents of his Troupe. Beautiful and terrible indeed, wonderful mystery, the one willing that they could not have. Wounded them terribly that they would pass without a word to their siblings, but they supposed there was only enough mercy in this world to keep one from forsaking living entirely. They would get to bid Grimm farewell. Quickly and hardly befitting, but they would. 

“I will stay. If you want.” He spoke, his bright eyes meeting their only seeing one. His scowl was no less beautiful than his most joyful grins, but the awareness of the emotion that must be running underneath that surface - a blend of grief, only contained by his own constitution - it was a thorn on that unmatched beauty. They wanted not to make him suffer. However much the Troupe Master cared for them, and for whatever reason he did so, they did not want to cause him any suffering, any kind of pain beyond the necessary. To be responsible over such a frown felt criminal, and the only charges they were willing to bear was oathbreaker and treason. Not extended grief. 

_ “This is a terrible play… Please spare me the shame of your witness. And my siblings’.” _ They muttered, those words resounding with less of their known weight and graveness for something fainter. Fading. They knew what it was for. On the same manner that they no longer could feel their legs responding, they too could not feel their hand anymore at Grimm’s face. As it began to crumble in its own carapace and slip on its own weight, the Troupe Master took it on his own, and gently placed it against Hallow’s melting chest. They were staining the dune with their void; it melted like mud on a riverbank. It budged slowly, before dissolving in a progressively more liquid manner. 

Their sight darkened nearly entirely. But they still could feel their shell’s weigh over the dunes of molt, the specks of white that were starting to cover them slowly, a couple days and they would be entirely gone underneath it. In their darkened sight, all they could make out where the two red eyes, charmingly sculptured into sharp glares, all but disheartened now. No longer could they feel his touch, or the weight of his hand. But they heard his words. 

“They will not know where. Go back to the Abyss from whence you came.” The red of his eyes seemed to merge into one, light fading too from their sight. They wondered if the warmth they felt against their own temple, a little below where their horns began, was a gentle touch or the caress of the fire breather’s lips against it.

“Rest, my dear.” Beyond hope and hatred, love and dread, aye, did they aim to do rest indeed. 

* * *

Morning greeted them like an old, childhood friend, wrapping them with the comfortable and warm embrace of familiarity, and into it they melted, nothing else existing in this world. Their eyes focused on what lay before them, a spacious and vast room, but their sight barely registered the details of the spacious and vast room they already knew well, as well as they knew the engravings on their favourite great nail.

At the White Palace, deep in the bowels of the residential wing, was hidden a library of tablets, away from the entrance and guest halls, away from the sight of visitors. It was a massive room on the Palace’s side, two stores high, and with a diagonal ceiling of metal and glass, wherein light traveled like skylights into the vast gallery of silk tomes and stone tablets. It was a beautiful space, concealed behind wide doorways that were neighbours to the doors of the King and Lady themselves, and also neighbours to the far more discreet doors of the monarch’s workshop. It was as if they countered one another, facing one another at a crossroads that separated two worlds, one of hopeful past, another of dreadful future. At that workshop on the other face of the corridor, the Wyrm hid for many nights, arched over writings and projects and the careful craft of his Kingsmolds. Across it, the Pure Vessel stood their guard, out of the way and sight of the retainers that passed by, in their hurry of keeping the Palace from being swallowed by plant life and dust, they wouldn’t cross a corridor in which the Pure Vessel stood, so they retracted themselves out of their way and into the library at the other side.

This room they woke in was grand, paneled by windows with intricate bars and sigils in its clear glass, that bled unto the outside and the inside the light that traveled across its surface like raindrops from the city above. Two stores made it a comfortable gallery for them to transverse upright, and the lack of many visitors made it an adequate dwelling. Long couches stretched themselves at places, one of which they believed would someday start giving signs of the body they laid there, and they should seek another place to put themselves to rest. The library was a secluded area, reserved for only the greatest and highest esteemed guests. It was where Monomon dwelled, should word be sent that she was in Palace Grounds. It was where Herrah lingered, watching the seals etched in stone with a degree of disapproval aimed at the seal's details, but drinking on the information so openly displayed nonetheless. It was a place where Lurien would come over, dragging a small, wheeled cart behind himself, and climbing the movable ladder from shelf to shelf, he would cramp them a bit more with more tablets he brought from the city, either findings, donations or crafts of his own.

Quite the sacred role, they thought. To fill these shelves with tablets was to save the lives of those who etched those, and in them pressed their thoughts and emotions, and the tales that they witnessed. Through the carvings in stone, one could safeguard them and themselves forever, beyond what their mortal lives could reach. To store those pieces, regardless of the nature of the record, be it a journal, a poem or an analysis of the events taking place, it was the most venerable of tasks, overlooked by many but the Teacher and the Watcher. She busied herself with the nature of it all, the science behind the mentality a crowd related, she was a scholar of the masses, its numbers, and its pathologies before this ill world. Lurien was too scholarly, but concerned with each piece nearly entirely individually, concerned with the depth of every piece and each singular bug and what their stories presented. Preserving Hallownest wasn't only a work of nail and craftsmanship, but also one of living, ruling, and recollection. The day bugs forgot the name of their mothers and the tales of their fathers, it no longer would be a Kingdom worth saving. A kingdom was its heritage, they had read once, and they couldn't help but take it as an absolute truth. What else would be a Kingdom, if not the stories it had, be it in stone waiting to be discovered, be it in the hearts of its denizens, or in the memory of its guardians? 

Lights came and went, founded their Kingdoms small and great, delicate and sturdy, and dusk took them all eventually, no light eternal. But if history remained, then there was hope that through the never-ending conflict of powers that brewed the world, it was the mortality of common bug, so fragile and so often disregarded, was what outlasted it all. They had always thought it charming, the idea of this fierce library, everlasting the world beyond and themselves. If their tale was put in stone, would they too last forevermore? Were they the kind of creature to tell tales of? All of the tales worth telling were of brave knights who won despite their odds, despite the weight of their emotions; themselves had no emotions, they were the Pure Vessel after all, and their tale was not of a Knight but of a tool. There was nothing to be sung about it.

The library was vacant of any living bug, this morning. They did not count themselves as one living bug, nay. Carefully, they allowed themselves to haul their long legs from over the armrest, their horns lifting from their balanced respite against the other arm, and carefully they sat up straight on the furniture. The metal of their armour and the rustling of their delicate cape was the only sound that graced this library, as it usually was every morning. They had trained themselves to rise whenever the Palace lit up, transposing the light of its ruler across mirrors and glassworks, and if they woke now, they understood the day had only just begun.

Their body rose in the same customary routine. On their feet in a moment, and taking their fingers to lace on one another. With their hands outstretched far, joined in an embroidery of claws, they rose them slowly, over their head and further back, pushing the platting of their carapace to the farthest it would go, before the strain unwinded itself. The Pure Vessel was awake, and Hallownest must be now doing the same. Bugs at the City of Tears above must be seeing the mist raise itself from the water that pooled on the city’s pavement, from dark and lifeless water, to something lit up from underneath. When the weather cooled enough, the downpour seemed to battle the very air in suspension, both raindrops and mist a gentle, twinkling white, that brightened the city everywhere one went. 

They would be making their ways out of their homes now. Bakers and seamstresses, guards and aristocracy. This was the moment where the pull of curtains, the spread of umbrellas and the creak of doors became the song of a city, percussed by the never ending rain. And very soon, that would come to the White Palace too. They had a routine, just like any other. Just like the Knights, any of them and luckily more than one, would make their way to the courtyard below and devote themselves to greet their King’s light with a dance of their training, be it the Wyrm at his balcony or not. It was as much of a respect to pay to Hallownest’s brilliant ruler as it was the manner they distracted themselves from the woes of having to wait for their overnight fast to be broken.

Retainers soon would fill these halls, pulling curtains that had been drawn when the day ended, so that the Palace’s indoors wouldn’t be so easily visible through the vast windows. Now, they soon would begin their march, rustling fabrics and misting plants, with the melody of curtains sliding on their shafts before being bound by tiebacks. The Pure Vessel too had a routine of their own. Their steps were delicate when they crossed this library, not wishing to make much noise despite the inevitability of such when their feet were so sharp against tiles, twinkling like the sharp juts of nail against metal. The quiet clicking was accompanied by the nearly unnoticeable sound of the fabric they dragged behind themselves; finest silk tailing them like a squire, bound underneath the gleaming pauldrons of their armour, making them all seem natural to one another. As if they had been born like this, of white shell and black body, clad in a gray in-between.

Their hands opened the doors to the library carefully, and lowering their horns, they stepped into the wide corridor beyond. Before them, stood the discrete doors to their father’s workshop, always closed and with no keyslots, only an etched sigil. It would open to them, however, should the Wyrm be inside and they knock thrice, two fast knocks and one slow, their unspoken keyword. But they knew he wasn’t in here, for at the end of the corridor, they could hear it faintly, almost like a whisper. The mournful weight of smooth, pale keys, being weighed down and hammering a string within the cuirass that bound them.

Their father’s piano, and his quarters. He had just begun, and the music told everything they needed to know to be aware what kind of day awaited them. For their father had written many songs, and played a thousand more, but one thing he never did was play a jolly one. He had many thrilling melodies, adorned in valorous bursts, growing marches, progressing into the most intense of pieces, but none of the songs that piano ever played had a contented tune to it. Romantic at times, when dealing with hope and themes such as their mother, elegantly beautiful and enchanting when meant to be presented to court and others, but never of happy tones. It was not the choice of melody or song that foretold the day that had just begun, but rather the pacing of it. The choice of octave. The notes he chose to erase entirely, leaving the piece with the feeling of incompletion, even if they had never heard it before.

Beings of silence spoke on what was not said. And when the Pale King’s voice tended to carry this unaltered forlornness, always speaking of dread and hope on the same tune, it was never in the intonation that lay his emotions and intentions, but rather the words he chose. The speech of a King was such, crafted either to move the world, or sometimes, rare sometimes, only to breathe out of himself the things that riddled his heart. And he would never tell anyone who could speak what was it that plagued his heart, but the Pure Vessel knew. His mute confidant, who would take to their grave the secrets they heard, the tears they dried, the monologues they were beholders of.

It was difficult, they admitted. To see their father as he was, unable to look at them and stretch the slightest of smiles, perhaps see in them the years of prosperity they would bring him. They knew of the cost, and had heard it thousands of times. Couldn’t imagine the weight of carrying such, and did not pretend they could imagine such. But they wished nonetheless that they would wake in a day where seeing the intended end deliver itself would bring some comfort to the mourning composer’s heart. May he play his melancholic songs with a bit more vigour and refreshing relief. May them be the herald of one single relieved song. May they bring peace. That had always been their own prayer.

It was all they had in themselves. That inspired, selfless, pale wish. As small as the lumaflies who flew uncaged on these halls, mostly choosing to land on the soul lanterns and bask on that light, join themselves to the choir of lantern, their own glow and the awake King’s own light who travelled glass and water and sought the city above, sculptured to house all beings that earned to live in such shelter and be nurtured by the light that granted such. For them, they existed in the first place, for them they were knighted, and for them they had the privilege themselves wielded now, to hesitate not to put their hands on the bedroom doors and push them open.

This song that graced their senses was not a song of a King who would leave this room if he was not reminded to. It had been a descent, each day passing more and more into this, as no retainer would dare to invade those quarters and the Knights were much too respectful to turn a harsh word towards their sovereign, there wasn’t any who would intervene in the King’s proneness to solitude and idleness from becoming entirely self-destructive, not since the White Lady was gone, so the Pure Vessel took on the task. They entered these quarters with the authority of a Kingdom who demanded its King, who asked their due from the exchange of being ruled by him, they demanded him to feed and tend to himself, at least.

May Hallownest perish for the infection, to lose a war was a possibility. To let their King waste away by their own negligence, as if the Kingdom cared not for their selfless light, it was not acceptable. And they would not let that be so, nay. They pulled their cape behind themselves, out of the door’s way before they let it close with a careful click. The room was spacious and yet, simple. A panel separated a part of the bedroom from the rest, where a bathtub was set. The bed was a vast, circular nest by the floor of a thick mattress and many pillows, for it once hadn’t been only their father’s. Large glass doors led to a balcony outside, where a small table and chairs were sat. Curtains of fine, sheer fabric, let some light bleed into the outside world but kept the courtyard beyond away from sight. Near one of the doors, the bedroom’s most esteemed piece had been hauled from the ballrooms and placed here once there were no more balls to be had in an infected Hallownest.

A long piano stretched itself diagonally towards the glass doors, its closed lid muffling the sounds of the strings that ever so delicately delivered what words could not. He was the only bright light of this room, the mirrors on the ceiling capturing his light and amplifying it unto the Hallownest who drank from it. But it was not in him that their eyes landed when they entered this room, but rather on the curtains that were strangely drawn, despite the Pale King always spreading them as soon as the day ended. They were tied, revealing the courtyard outside and it's Palace Grounds, a landscape they knew too well. 

Except it was not the Palace Grounds what they were seeing. Instead, unfurled forevermore under gray, gleaming mist, stood a land of fossils and spirals. If they focused their sight for long enough, it became clear that the light that played on their sight was patterned, as all leaves were when brought to close inspection. The light here was a round speck, spreading like a flower pressed against a disk, like a net around a wheel. Like a moth’s dreamshield, of spotless white, gleaming silvery like pale ore freshly brought from the ground. The world outside was not of cavern nor of golden clouds, but rather an uneven ground, composed of the coils and arches of the fossilised body of a Wyrm, gray like dead light, curling into itself and housing a palace atop its many folds, some which housed white lakes. Clouds of mist played with the notion of distance and end - this impossible landscape ended nowhere, it just eventually got too impossible to see an end to the irregular and sinuous fields over fossilised carcasses. At some lower spots, white lakes pooled, steaming upwards. Where the coils were too high, it was impossible to tell how high, as they vanished into thick mist gathering in thick and pale clouds. 

The wrongness of it was their only cue, but they were dexterous. This was, with no doubt, a dream. And to realise it, to enforce that thought upon themselves, was to wrestle a stuck doorway open with no shallow amount of might, with no brief bout of strength. A door than when opened, they could no longer close. They were dreaming. And if they were dreaming, then they knew this was not necessarily what they had left behind in the waking world, thus, the most natural train of thought was: who were they? What kind of them were they, past this mirage? 

As that dam burst, there was no sealing it. They knew who they were damn well, and knew what world they had left behind. They recalled it all with the suddenness of one waking from a slumber through violence, and with that, the room too changed to suit the dreamer. From its paleness to a somber gray, from the beginning of morning to the dead of the night, there was no light travelling these glass panes and no lumaflies or lanterns made it into this room or anywhere outside. These curtains had tattered with time, for time hadn’t touched him but it had touched the world, had touched Hallownest. The White Palace with no light was a somber, colourless, gray thing, and the furniture had been covered in white sheets, as if waiting for the owner’s return.

But the Palace’s owner had never left it. Had left them, and Hallownest, but had never left his Palace. When they turned back to the door, eager to give their back to this entire scene, what met them wasn’t polished shellwood doors but rather a tightly sealed one, its key a brand they did not possess. Their cape did not rustle when they moved, but rather the chains hanging from their armour, pauldrons and chestpiece now nailed to their carapace and stained with splattered Void. Gray, like all they had ever truly seen of life. Not only light and beauty, but darkness and sorrow too. Misery and pain. None ever stood on its own, without the other.

The world had always been gray, they just hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t accepted it perhaps. Ignorance was a blessing they couldn’t have anymore.  _ “...I must hate myself so, to make this moment’s dream to be of you.” _

And they must indeed, they thought. For without the mist of ignorance, and themselves now entirely in the world of dreams, with their whole mind and heart, they were blessed - and cursed - with all of their integrity. Maybe it was all that there was left of them. This last memory in dream, dreaming one last time as the most stubborn spirits did. And they knew not why they would dream of this at their last moment, perhaps not even themselves could hate what they were so much, but they were finding hurt even now, in the most mysterious of places and the strangest of sources.

They would keep on hurting themselves until their very last, they thought. Without intervention, even now they wouldn’t permit themselves a second of peace, their own self-inflicted punishment for failing with their purpose as they did. And they ought to give themselves cheers for their creativity, for the sheer evilness of what they had concocted. When their eyes fell on the Wyrm at his piano, still playing the same song in the same pattern, the sight wasn’t just routine anymore. It wasn’t just merely mournful, nor vaguely disheartening to behold. It was dreadful to witness.

Oven the thinnest of gowns, three pairs of see-through, thin wings folded over one another, the only clear and dust-free thing in the room, still capable of reflecting some vague light in their iridescent surface, sustained by thin veins that thickened at their junction at his back. Their father’s body was a minuscule thing, and very unlike their own. Three pairs of arms, short and unimpressive, bore small fingers, talented at delicate craftsmanship and little else. The lower pair sported no fingers but rather stood as an in between arms and legs. He had no sharp claws to bear, and the former Pure Vessel shared that trait. Three pairs of legs carried his elongated body close to the ground, and under that gown of his at all times he hid a tail of no particular use, remnant of his form that stood fossilised outside, somewhere beginning and somewhere ending, but they could not see either, nor tell if there was more than a single corpse in the fray. 

His crowned head weighed, they knew. They always knew that it weighed in more ways than one, for their own horns weighed, were always something they had to sort out how to balance, their father’s own mustn’t be any lighter to bear. But nonetheless they bore their weighs, without a mutter of complaint. As time had passed, more and more this angle became common to his horns, up to the moment they could not think of their father anymore without imagining the gray of his eyes darkened by the glow he suppressed and the shadows his horns cast over his features. As of now, the image that their own dreams conjured glowed not, and for not a single moment did he raise his head or interrupt his song. Not unlike how he had treated the former Pure Vessel in life.

This was all their own creation, they knew. Their last dream. There was none here but themselves and their own memories, the strength of their dreams something they inherited from her, and as such, the details and the level of consciousness over it was unlike anything they had ever seen. Nonetheless, did it mimic the past so perfectly while adding elements of the future they had not been here to witness unfolding… It didn’t feel like a dream, but rather like an expired foretell. Something that could have happened, but had not, and yet they were having their vision now, much later than it was intended.

His hands were small, and his fingers could only reach a couple neighbouring keys at a time, an issue which he used to make up for with all the extra limbs he wielded. All the same, his reach could only go so far; his chosen side of the piano for the evening was the lowest octaves, playing the lethargic melody in a stretched tempo as if they were rumbles and murmurs on a distance, a melody without an upperscore and without hurry. The composition was foreign, but stretched at the rack where several papers were placed, arranging the composition in his neat handwriting. 

_ “Loving you has always been a grave crime, has it not?” _ They spoke, and like the piano keys, they could hear themselves. An aloof voice, unshaken, unwavering, despite the weight of those words. Even in dream, even at the privacy of their own mind, this was but a phantom they were desperate to find in life, but not to be haunted in dream. For seeing him, like all the similar scenes she constructed in their home, seeing him hurt. Almost enough to silence all other woes, all the grief and anger they were bringing with themselves from the living world, but this was a disruptive sight nonetheless. Yet, their voice remained even. Their hands remained still. They had been taught many things, but never how to express themselves properly.  _ “It is not something you could ever accept, had you known.” _

They hated that even here, they felt that hurt dig so deeply that their sight blurred at its fringes. With none to witness, not even her, they let their shell tilt down, only to drop the tears they felt swelling at the lower rim of their shell. The movement was enough to make the chains crossed around their chest and back rattle, glowing slightly with the seals still placed on them. As if they had simply broken off their Temple a moment after they had been sealed. How many times had they hoped that they could wake eventually free of her and simply make their way back, finding a prosperous Hallownest who hadn’t waited for them, and had simply grown even more, bloomed into something even more wondrous? 

Countless times that dream had plagued them. But this was never what they were meant to have, were not what they met once they were free. And then, they hadn’t known of Hallownest’s fate nor their own for certain. It was a time where hope, however slim and faint, still lived. They had no such thing now. And this torture never ending it did haunt and did hurt, but it also brought a strange emotion to them. A notion of safety, as odd as it may be. This was the one dream of their father they knew she was not interfering in. This was the one dream where they needn’t fear somehow that their father could reach, like how he could reach all souls across his Kingdom. This one meeting, he wouldn’t know. None would. Was theirs to do with it as they pleased.

And nothing would truly please them as much as it would to simply forgo this farewell entirely, pass away with any other last thought besides missing and besides pain, let themselves wallow in this suffering no more and finally rest… They could have done without a single farewell, from the waking world and this. But they supposed fate did not like them. So, as their father played, they sought within themselves the way out of this place within their mind. Any exit besides the sealed door behind themselves. But their heart betrayed.  _ “I am aware of my responsibility. It is why I have failed. Why you have failed.” _

They found themselves explaining, no other thought coming to mind and staying there besides those words that seemed to have been sorted eons ago and yet, they had never been granted the chance to mutter them. Even less to their father, and they still never could. But this was also the closest they might ever get to such, they supposed. They did not want it, not to explain to a ghost of their mind how themselves felt, what they knew and what not. They wanted not to wallow in it any further. They didn’t want to mutter yet another word, for they knew that what was strangled in their heart was either a sob, a scream or an apology. And they wanted to handle the Wyrm’s memory none, their father deserved many things, great and ill, but for themselves they held onto pride. They deserved better than to crawl and plead an apology.  _ “I should not apologise. There is not enough apology one single mind can conceive, either way.” _

The former Hollow Knight wanted to bite their tongue off, even if it was not guilty of the words they spoke as tears stained their shell. Their arms, furled under cloak and chain, held on one another, fingers lacing on the crook of their elbows. When their feet moved, it was with idleness at their upper body, making it so the rattling sounds and dragging metal over delicate tile was only from the slide, not from any step too sharp. Their eyes set themselves on the composition at the rack, reading through it fast and detecting where their father was at. 

_ “We died in the same manner.” _ They muttered, lowering themselves to one knee, then the other. Even like this, they stood taller than their father by a good amount, the bench between them and the instrument like a barrier. They listened attentively to the melody's progress, for it was what they had always done, their whole life. Witnessed pieces, never to play. Their eyes sought their father’s, and they found the painted image they had seen so many times before. Gray eyes, a small mouth drawn in a stern yet neutral line. A gentle face, not particularly unique if not for the set of horns he bore, binding him to the fate of King of Hallownest, as his foretelling had told him he would be.  _ “We die alone. Mourning. Our own doing, I suppose.” _

Had it been so? What other choice did the former Hollow Knight have but to die alone as he had done? What else could he do? Ask Grimm to mourn them, when the Troupe Master owed them nothing? Should they have passed away in that basement, near their molted sibling? Of course not. Somethings just weren’t doable, they supposed, but their father’s decision to pass away as he had… It still bewildered them, unsettled like infection at their inner void, stirring it nervously every time they recalled it. Did he too opt to break his oaths and retreat the sights of all before passing away? The other options, if the Pale King had had any, would never be known for they had died with him, within that shell of his, with no stone etched to tell the tale.

Even if there was, they doubted he would have ever told anyone the motive. He never had done so, always a creature of collected words, aloofness, distance and somberness from the people he surrounded himself with. One who everyone could see that he carried a mountain on his shoulders, and mattered not how much inquired, he never handed another a word about his woes. He loved Hallownest and his Root and the child he didn’t have, mistake it not - it was simply his nature to be that far away, carrying his crown of thorns by his own as much as he could. They weren’t that different, nay. The former Pure Vessel reached a hand from beneath their cloak, stretching their fingers, and carefully hovered them over the unattended half of the piano. When their father began the song again, a few seconds of silence lingering at its end, they joined him at the beginning, taking over the lighter and most vicious introduction, which paced the rather violent crescendo of its start.

_ “We are very alike in our manner.” _ They voiced, their fingers stretched wide and covering the keys at their half of the piano with practised ease. They loved their father, irredeemably, impossibly so even now, but they did not know how to feel at their own comparison even if it was truthful and void of ill thought.  _ “...Proud. Self-important and self-destructive. That must be why our Lady distanced herself. So far she has gone that I do not think it will take long for her to depart to where no mere bug may reach.” _

What use was there to catch up the ghost of their father’s memories to the events of Hallownest, they knew not. Perhaps it all served a higher purpose - to compare themselves to him, tell him of the world outside, perhaps was a manner to try and hurt him. Perhaps a way to try and elicit a reaction from the visage, even if it was a product of their own delirious mind. Perhaps they felt some comfort in simply speaking, even if they had always spoken and chosen their words, they just were never heard. They could have always written to him. There was simply no one interested in listening to them. Their fingers halted the crescendo at their signaled point, and began complimenting the composition with its intended most intense and energetic melody, patterned by the slower but heavy underscore below.

_ “...I used to marvel at your great feats, but now, I worry for your soul. And why not, my own.”  _ This song was ruthless and aggravated, vibrant in its beginning like a fierce tragedy, sectioned with the other half of the composition, a mournful, disheartening melody that was both beautiful as it was sad to hear in their father’s eagerness. Slow keys, heavy touches. Mattered not however, in what tone they had died, nor how they felt now, playing the arrangement displayed. They wondered what had become of their father, as he had no heir or hivemind to turn to, no Lord of Shades to be part of. They had always thought Higher Beings, even Unn in her fading slumber, were only but vague subjects of time. It didn’t age nor alter them if they didn’t choose to permit such. They simply withered or were killed at some point, like all mortal bugs. A strange notion, for themselves, and they wondered if they would follow the same path, as tired as they were. They would have no answers from this ghost on how their father died, and if it had been as simple as their sibling had made it sound. Nonetheless, they wondered, and worried.  _ “Either way, we both lingered for too long, and decayed. I wonder what awaits us, beyond.” _

Maybe like themselves were fated to die at her hands, never meant to survive that post-mortem they had been rejoicing lately at their siblings’ company, their father too was meant to have died in some other manner, a long time ago. Fate, if it was as unwavering and inevitable as the Wyrm used to say it was, then most certainly any cheating he attempted against it, only came later due. Perhaps it was what had happened, a detail to his foresight that he never brought up. Perhaps he had already arrived at Hallownest fated to end here, as all Wyrms seemed to do. Once more, they were strangely alike. Borrowing time they should not have. Either entirely faithless before the woes of the world, or entirely faithful to their own capacity of delivering the impossible, they knew no middle ground, and that had awarded them nothing good. Their father hadn’t escaped death, nor had themselves.  _ “I wonder if you could have… If you could have liked the comparison.” _

They muttered, their fingers following the arrangement, but their eyes escaping to glance at the Pale King time and time again, their own horns casting a shadow over the Wyrm and yet, not even then, the illusion didn’t budge, acknowledged them in no manner. They weren’t sure if they were wishing it would, so they could read an answer where there wasn’t any, or if they were taunting it, daring a word to be said so they would justify a most violent reaction from themselves. They were at loss at how themselves felt, and perhaps, they asked the things they did so themselves could find an answer to what they didn’t know. Did they like to compare themselves to the Pale King?  _ “...I wonder if you would have liked to know me, had you known. So this would not feel so empty and one sided now. So I would feel some kind of comfort on seeing us play, knowing that you loved me back.” _

Their singular conclusion was that they liked the comparison, on the same degree they loathed it. To love him was not to be void of criticism, and while they did trust that he had done what he could, the best as he had seen it at the time, it did not change the fact that they couldn’t imagine themselves following the same path. Both a weakness and a strength of their own. In between oaths to Hallownest and to curse progeny, they could not see themselves following through his plan, at his place. Nay, for they already broke bonds much less important with little thought employed, and they loved their siblings without qualms and their mother impossibly. For much less they could love one they had just known, and one they had only heard of. It would not be in them to do as he had done. In between their loved ones and an oath, this was no difficult choice for themselves, nor one they doubted. At the same time… Did they wish they were half as strong as he was. Half as wise, half as courageous, half as devoted. Half as intelligent, and self-sustaining. Between the three of them, Hornet, Ghost and themselves, the three had inherited different traits of the Pale King and those were powerful traits on their own, making each of them unique. The Pale King was all of them, summed into one being.

He entirely deserved the fame he had. Yet, to adore him, to wish they could have been a bit more like him in the best aspects, it was not enough to compare themselves with them and leave it at that. It was both praise and offense, even now. And remained unanswered - and would remain forevermore - how their own father would have felt about it.  _ “...This is not a thought I permit to fester. Even less than any other. But it does gnaw at me now, to imagine what words I would have liked to write to you. How I would have cherished to let you know I heard, and stood by you, and learnt all of you. Your songs, habits, routine. I would have written you a sonata, had you allowed. It would have been as I see you. Stern and proud and selfless.” _

The song arrived at a sudden cut from their grave end of the keyboard. An interruption that, despite all that their heart might have hoped it could have meant, was very much predicted and written on the sheets. Themselves counted the time of the pause, before resuming the song into another crescendo in a most mournful tone. Melody gentle, but that would not heal any of what they felt. Wouldn’t heal the world, wouldn’t heal what had happened. Its desperate escalation lacked the violence of its first section, yet had the merciless weight of a tragedy coming to an end.  _ “And after playing it to you, I would have still stood by you for days, and days, and days. I would have walked into my Temple, to buy my sibling the time. The one that ended the Forgotten Light is nothing like me. Perhaps you would have liked them. But they most certainly would not have liked you.” _

Indeed they would have continued their father’s plan upon request. If they had heard then that this was a fool’s errand, and that they would be led as a scapegoat into that Temple, with no chance whatsoever for them to succeed on their task, they would have still done it. Perhaps with even more strength on their step, and purpose in their heart. All their father needed to do was ask, and they would have seen it done. So easily they were willing to give their life for those they loved. They would have done so with mirth. It would all be worth it, knowing what would come to the world outside. No wait would be too long nor too painful, knowing that this doubt that she had taunted them with for so long was no doubt at all, but the certainty that their father had met them, and loved them. Her taunts would hurt many things, taint many things, but not that, and in this situation, not knowing felt like a fate far more cruel than simply knowing. Had they known their father loved them the slightest would have made a proper tragedy out of this. But alas, it wasn’t. This could have never been a pleasant play. 

_ “It could not be so, I suppose. Nothing. No other possibility for us or our Hallownest. But with more time, I think we could have done well with what we were given.” _ The composition evolved to a different melody. Delicate and forlorn, but free of the weight of the other two sections. It was furling into itself, closing itself like a miserable ending to this piece none would leave pleased from. A most delicate outro that offered no apologies, nor hopes, but only a sense of finality.  _ “We would have torn apart what was left. Memories of you, of her, of us. Salvage only our best. Your strength, your intelligence. Shed the rest so the memories would strengthen us, rather than weight us down. We already were greater, should you have seen it.” _

It wouldn't have lasted, they knew. Their post-mortem, even if it had been so wrongly interrupted, those few precious moments so cruelly robbed off them, it could have been beautiful, and most certainly worthwhile, but not eternal. The Pale King knew not the bug that Hornet had become, timeless and sharp, unwaveringly stubborn and fiercely alive - she had held the Kingdom together and he most certainly would have been proud to see an heir on her. Not pale, but enough Wyrm in her to carry on his legacy, and entirely a ruler in her lineage that Hallownest might inevitably sink, but she would make it an honourable end. At her side, the Ghost of Hallownest, another vessel yet one of a kind. Brave and relentless, strong and yet, caring. Mindful of detail. Everything a Knight should be, and much, much more. Shaped and strengthened by that mysterious darkness, a light's enemy, yet, partially Wyrm as well. Their father might have liked them too, despite it all.

_ "Hallownest could have been eternal, were you still here, or if our Lady was not so faint now. And it will be wondrous, for a very brief moment. I will miss such a sight."  _ Their father would have liked to see it endure, if he wasn’t so blind by his grief. They couldn’t blame him, nay, to look at his lowered head and the little effort he handed to his song, they knew that their dream had all but concocted a mirror for themselves. A mirror for them to gaze upon, and hurt, and have pointed at themselves all of their worst flaws, embodied at one they loved so much and knew they had hurt as well. Inevitably and unintentionally, but hurt.

And it was where their grief turned bitter, and most dangerous. The song ended, and their hand curled at the cushions of the bench before them. The notion that it was their fault, their doing, the guilt of it all was heavy to bear, and it mattered not if it was brought up time and time again that they couldn’t have done better. To know such was not to accept it readily, nor enough to let it alter the manner in which their heart felt. They could not rest, feeling like they had failed their father. And in a way, they too felt like the world had failed them, but they were not in place to accuse it of its unfairness; they were silent sufferers, them both. They could have fixed that in themselves if they had the time. It was all they did not have. Time. A time to permit the medicine to sink through their carapace, a time for them to stand, a time for them to see Hallownest live viciously one last time.

From harness to grave, they weren’t given enough time in between to recover from where bindings chaffed, and restore a little strength before they were gone. They would die like this, still carrying their armour and the weight of their responsibilities. Dragging behind them the sealed chains of the expectations they did not meet, and the guilt of failing the one they held most dear. Dragging those weights that they knew they should not, and they had said they would not. _ “May Hallownest last longer than myself.” _

They said, their hands rising from underneath their cloak and armor, lifting as much as they could, so they could lace their hands around a section of chain, grounded at the loop smelted into the pauldrons themselves. Sitting back on their heels, they tightened the grip on the chains and pulled. They could not break the seals placed by a light, but it was in their carapace that the metal had been bolted. The pauldron would not break, but their body would. They felt the wrongness that their bodies identified as  _ damage _ , and felt the void staining their cloak further more, but also felt the metal tensing, and budging. One shoulder of their armour fell off, hitting the tiles fast and loudly with the strength they placed behind the pull.

They were wounded, but a little lighter without it. They would not die with them nailed on them, their heart was weight enough. As their fingers pulled at the other chain, their thoughts went to their sibling, their sister. It was not for their father that they had so desperately craved more time in the living world, it was not to fulfill his expectations, it was for them. For their love, for the one they named Hallow, and for the Hallownest they wanted to meet properly, perhaps being able to finally deliver a wave when they were always regarded as a walking statue. It was for the people they hadn’t had the time to meet, and one to court. The other pauldron fell off, and they felt their carapace shaking entirely where they bled.

_ “No cost too great to preserve Hallownest, but none of us could afford it.” _ Not Hallow, not their father, no one. They might feel otherwise, but they would not carry the weight of thinking they could have, even if they could not. Their fingers sought for the straps at their sides, clasps that held in place their back and chest plate underneath pale, thin silk. They had never been easy to pull together or apart, but as of now, they cared not for the integrity of the piece when they unbound it. As they pulled them off, their back plating falling behind themselves, their hands discarded the chest plate unceremoniously aside.

Turned upwards, the sigil of Hallownest gleamed faintly. A beautiful piece, truly, and one they adored still. But that armour and the role it embodied was a cage, regardless of how beautiful they named it, how charmingly they thought of its use. Their wearer had never been born, would never be. All that had ever been was them, Hallow, and it was them that were dead now. Them that sought their freedom. And they would have it, as the last thought they would have.  _ “It is time for the unmeasurable night, father. A real one, with no threat of dawn.” _

This dream wouldn’t last forever. As all dreams, it would end itself when it was either interrupted or had finished its course, and they believed that there wasn’t much else for them to say. What else could they bring up, knowing they were not being heard and they would not be answered? They would not taunt their father’s memory with their anger, her anger, for now even it felt petty. The only thing they still felt, and forever would feel was the nonredeemable fact that all the same, they loved him, still.

The Pale King must have thought that nobody could see how his woes weighed his shoulders. He had a thousand flaws, and this one perhaps was the most grave. He did not rely or count on the people he surrounded himself with, as if he was wary of requesting their aid, by either pride or by being too confident in his intellect. Perhaps he was indeed unmatched in his intelligence. But between the death he had and the cost paid, was it truly worth it? Hallow was no Knight themselves, but in his place, they have preferred to gather the court, and bring them news with a Knight’s determination. They would seek the light in dream, and defeat her as their sibling had done, in battle. Only them, although each Knight of the Great Five would be welcome, this assembly an invitation for a most suicidal battle, but they would not request that from anyone but from themselves.

If they didn’t return, may Hallownest live forevermore in the back of steeds and carried in carriages. They would live as memories, sung around lanterns and campfires in the wasteland beyond. May their White Lady, with her unmatched resilience and endless nurturing nature, guide them to shelter, water, and a new Kingdom for herself to root. Hallownest needn’t be a place. It would live eternally as long as there were tales of its victories to be sung, tragedies of its history to be taught. Hallownest was composed of two lights and one Pale Being who could not shine on her own, but hoard and reproduce light forevermore. And she would make sure that this memory of light lived forevermore, should she agree to rise up to this task.

In his place, they would have left their light with her and rode into battle. To win it all, but not lose it all. They were different, despite how similar. And now, they believed there was more worth on themselves alive than dead. The price to keep Hallownest was too high, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so much if the Kingdom had welcomed a little change. What use was there to oaths and spires, of tomes and banners, if they chaffed and wounded those they loved? They were not the same, in that aspect. It was what they wished to hold on to when this dream ended, and when the last seconds stretched forevermore, if they shared their father’s fate of withering and not even getting to join their siblings at the Abyss, they hoped these would be their last thoughts.

Of where they excelled. Where they knew they would have been better, for like Hornet and Ghost, they were willing to tear at that Hallownest of old, and gather from the ashes all that was good and of use. May the glorious past live forever but only in memory, and not hinder their dreadful future. Like them, they knew they weren’t afraid of their fate, nor willing to wrestle against it like their father seemed to have done, but willing to accept it with a degree of mourning and make the most with the time they were given. They simply were given none of that. 

With the back of their hands, they smudged the black tears from their shell. There was nothing else left unmourned, and this mirage offered no comfort. This White Palace, cast by age and shadows, offered no relief to see again, not when they knew it lived in an unreachable past. To adore it with ignorance was too to ignore the price of this adoration, and how it harmed them. And they were learning, they supposed - had been learning, up to the last moment, to respect what they loved and yet be better. But like the end of this era, they too were wrapped up, not to be brought unto the next. A pity. They still felt like they could offer so much, learn so much. 

_ “Rest, father. You have played enough. It is their turn now.” _ A good musician or a bad one, it was not for them to judge. Not when they had seen the music from up close, and believed still that he had done his best. They would always rever that, they supposed, even if they diverged. It would never be known if their brand of divergence was any better, if their compass of decision-making was any better than his, even if they felt it in the depths of their heart that it was. They had played, they supposed. For no crowd, but played their part in that last era now heeding its last. Played at the backstage, for only their instructor to hear. Played outside the theatre, never at the orchestra. Who’s to say they could do better than the lead pianist? It too would never be known, and in a way, they were relieved. Unanswered questions too would cease haunting them. Their siblings would play, and they wished they would do well. Soon, the pain of not getting to witness, not getting to aid where they could, it too would fade.

As their eyes lowered themselves once more, they met a gray pair, the light in them but a speck, a candlelight shielded and protected within palms as if it was the last in the world, and as such, they had been sneaked away from this fading world not in a massive lantern nor through warfare, but through subterfuge. Discreetly, between fingers, as shy as twin lumaflies, glowing between gray vessels. Not the blinding light they could be, not the searing white fire that enlightened, nay. In moments like these, their father’s light was but a small thing. Not outshining the Wyrm, who had a name underneath it all, underneath a massive or diminutive body and an even greater title. A name that was not known, for he never hoped to be anything for Hallownest but their most faithful citizen, and so it had been. But in eyes like these, they revealed the one underneath. Haunted and exhausted too, like Hallow. The Pale Wyrm, Father-King,  _ Æthelstan _ .

**“No cost too great.”** When not reaching the minds of bugs, great and small, to make his voice be heard above all others, they were incredibly quiet. A voice of impossible stillness, so much that like the cut of a blade, it interrupted thought. Somberness and weight, added to a grave tone, that was Hallow’s own. Their father’s was similar, in a manner that the melody seemed to repeat itself, although in several octaves higher. His somberness could be mistaken for comfort, his weight was light enough that his voice could sound soothing and assertive, both.

But so quiet now. Raw, as it was bled into the dream rather than directly into their mind, a sound that was physical and breathless, it was as if they could hear the air stuck in his throat. Words and sobs that he would not handle the world, but so clearly held, even now. Hallow had not noticed when the mirage had turned, hadn’t seen it moving, but they did see those eyes on them now. Seeing them, as they had never seen them before, never bothered to acknowledge for a while too long. At their last, it mattered not if this wounded more than it comforted. An illusion like this, created by their most delirious mind, had the power to unearth and destroy all that they had built in these last days. All this development, all the independence they had gained, of heart, of mind and of soul. All the distance they had crossed to finally believe they could walk a Hallownest without him. This would have been enough to make them nail their armour back on themselves. But the damage mattered not, for they wouldn’t wake to see it.

They crawled closer, the movement an spasmodic, unorderly thing. On their knees, they still were higher than the Wyrm, who remained perched at his cushioned bench but facing them. For the first time, they feared what their size and strength could mean if they brushed Hallownest’s Pale King. Their hands seemed massive, coating their father’s shoulders in almost its entirety. There was the gnawing fear that their touch would dismiss the mirage, but even if it did so, it was worth the attempt. They had no other words to spare their father, no other moment worth stretching for a while longer. None but this, and letting it pass while holding back their hands, it was worth nothing.

The mirage held, and was warm to the touch. They dared not to think of it any further, they had no more strength to steer their feelings and thoughts any further than they already had. They were only careful enough when they approached, and their arms wrapped themselves around the much smaller body. And he felt like he had always looked like before - smaller than his clothes made him look like, more fragile than the light he wielded, but also, carrying a warmth that wasn’t either absent entirely, nor blinding white. It was the warmth of a confession, the warmth of a love that he could not show and themselves could not bask in, but they knew he felt it. For her, for Hallownest. They dared not to question now if it was for themselves too. For now, it too mattered not. Knowing would have helped, but not anymore. This illusion mattered not for the Pure Vessel, the Hollow Knight, and Hallownest. This was no disclosure for them, served no actual use for them, but for Hallow… They were everything, and they were willing to let it destroy everything they were in it.

**“...No cost too great,”** He repeated, a tone slightly more strained, as if he wrestled it from within his own armour, role and cage. As if it strangled him too, and as always, there had never been anyone but themselves to witness. They needn't be a mute to hold those secrets like a tomb, too personal of a reflection for them to feel the right to share. Short arms could never wrap themselves around them entirely, but they felt it. Against the bleeding holes from the nails himself placed against their shoulders, against the platting of their chest. His fingers felt gently warm, but the touch was painful, not from heat but it was as if it seared where it touched. Made burns that did not scorch anywhere visible. **“...To see my children inherit it.”**

The completion of his ode felt strange and fatal. As if it was something they were never meant to hear, nothing anyone was ever meant to know. As if the Pale King simply could be so selfish and so different from the royal that he presented to the world, Æthelstan so different from the Pale King, that the wishes on his heart, for so long unspoken and never acted upon, were now a foreign notion even for himself, impossible to imagine that it could sound so simple, and so minor before the eyes of greater events. As if when his foretelling hit, it was not concerns over Hallownest that had been revealed to him at first, but instead were shown those wishes of his instead. As if when his foresight hit, it was not Hallownest’s fate he saw, but another fate far more important to his heart and soul. And it was not towards Hallownest’s salvation that he worked towards, it was not thinking of its people that he paid his prices, but towards something else.

For a ghost in their dreams, these courtly details, hidden in choices of words and small details, were so strangely inventive they no longer were sure whether or not this dream was placed in them for themselves to find, or if they had genuinely simply outdone themselves, coming up with this torture at the drop of a hat. The Wyrm’s last pair of hands met the edges of their shaking shell, framing the former Pure Vessel’s mask. They could not reach any higher, even if they wanted it so. They led them closer, until their eyes were at the same height and angle. His forehead rested against the plain of their horns, where they began.

**“Light up their way.”** His hands chose where they held and stayed. At their bleeding shoulders, as if to bless the lift of their oppressive cuirass. A pair at their chest, as if the warmth could lull into peace and silence the restlessness of the void inside. At the rim of their shell, beneath enough that they were placed where a jaw would be if they weren’t built without one - intended, but removed. His words had a tone of request, a quiet plea. As if he hoped they would promise them as much, and grant him that last comfort that he would not have.

This cruel illusion was no relief, and came too late. Indeed it seemed to have been meant for another moment, another time, stored in their soul perhaps for them to find when they were truly past the roles imposed. But it had been too late. It was all too late for them to find anything in here but comfort, laced with grief and hurt. Nonetheless, they held on to him tighter, their fingers digging on the thin gown tightly. They wouldn’t wake to see the damage this would deal to their heart, nor any comfort it might bring. They wouldn’t wake to see this promise unfulfilled. Their life had made them a liar and oathbreaker, and so may they be one, if it was the cost to pay for doing what they must and see those they loved well.

_ “I will.” _ It was not a lie, given that the question too must have been meant for themselves on another moment, at another time. It was genuine in their heart - if they had been asked such at any moment prior, the answer would have been the same. Whatever was it that they could do and was needed to light their siblings’ and Hallownest’s path into the new era, they would have done it. It was never up to question, and not something they needed to promise. Not something they would do for their father, either. 

Yet, in a manner, it was a little for him too. They could give him that - nothing would feel like honouring the old Wyrm as much as aiding his Kingdom and his children. To love them was to love him, and they never denied that love. Their father seemed to take their words for what they were, only the most slight of nods coming to his crowned head. The faint, shy, scarce little light of his eyes remained as it had always been. When not blinding, when not enlightening, it was but a shy thing, that seemed like it could be passed hands and hid within the tiniest lanterns. Stored in a breast pocket, until it was time to light up Hallownest once again, and guide it into another day, or at the very least, a bright night.

Like their voidhearted sibling, the light’s size betrayed its power. To see it light up one last time was the last thing they dreamt of. The burning light seared it all, holy shell and blackened carapace, it brought the shade to hide in splatters wherever it could. The Pale, colourless light shone one last time, bright and impossibly white, before fading into grays. Into the nothingness of black, swallowed by impossible darkness.

Finally, two Wyrms died. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I going to explain myself? No. Stay tuned for answers in the incoming week. 
> 
> In case you missed the first notes: I am not in a hurry with writing these, mind you. But I feel like my brain is dulled - I can no longer tell what is good writing and what is bad. But I feel like this slightly more dynamic and shorter writing, focused more on dialogues and actions, it is being well received. Let me know if you prefer this in comparison to chapter 3 and 4. 
> 
> Special thanks to my personal Pantheon of Hallownest:  
> Laurie  
> JeffNorseGod  
> GuestyGirl  
> Sidotherobot  
> All others who left a comment, but these are the recurring bugs, each sitting atop their lil pantheons, beautiful folks with always constructive feedback and endless patience. I could never be like them. I can't read. I'm dyslexic.
> 
> By the way, don't like to write comments here? Hit me up in Instagram or Discord! ( @riptaide or Herja#8664)


	9. Ballade for Midnight and Midday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels like a stranger. It was so difficult to deliver. Let’s just get on with it.
> 
> IMPORTANT: This chapter is LONG. We have 30k words here. I recommend that if you do not have the time to read what would be 2 chapters in one, use the poems as milestones. The second poem marks 15k words before, 16k words yet to go. I will not apologise for being wordy AT ALL. It just had to be like this, I could not deliver it in any other manner, it is beyond my skill. 
> 
> See you at the bottom notes. :) We will have a lot to talk about then.

Who are they, if not an aptly named apparition, bound to haunt this Kingdom lost? It had been their sibling who told them that names were powerful things, either gifted or taken, and either way, they served as seals of a purpose, the mask that embodied a soul, made it recognisable. It was a word chosen to celebrate all that they were, their woes and fears, their glories and conquests. It was their signature upon this world, at the end of every great feat and greater loss. It was a single thing that had as many meanings and impressions as the number of times it could be spoken, whispered; there were as many selves as there were witnesses to them and moments in time.

Ghost was what they were. Ghost was a name given, a name fated, and a name chosen. The marriage of the three infused it with strength in such a manner that made them wonder, even now, how much of it was their doing. The path ahead had always been a mystery, something for them to sort through and decide with little to no indication of the correct route, but the path they trailed behind themselves, ah, they were either delicate foot trails on the dirt, easy to dismiss and easier to erase, or it was downright torn up valleys, dug on the very stone, to everlast the eras.

They are ancient, it feels. As old as their sister, as old as their once-bound sibling. Older still, for they aren’t only one, but the amalgamation of something greater, something that overshadows meagre shell and answers to the rhythm their voidheart beat, at a percussion only their kind can hear. They do not feel as old as they are. It is a particularity of their kind, they supposed; born of God and Void, both are immune to the woes of time, and for so long they had wandered, so long they had haunted the wasteland beyond, having emerged from the Abyss through a cavern long sealed, and dug through Deepnest to make their way into the world beyond Path and Edge, they recalled very little of that time. So long they have lived, yet not.

Out of Kingdom, they still carried the Void’s stasis in their core. For with no thought, no will and no voice, there was also nothing to remember. With nothing to mark the seasons and the wind never changing its routes, the world beyond changed naught. If not driven to shelter, to rest, to feed, they were as immutable as stone, and equally as unremarkable. They had haunted that wasteland with no name to themselves, no understanding of self, for in a manner, they were not born. Their first memory, their ascension memory, had been quickly forgotten once the sands rebounded against their shell and tore at their cloak. Not an appeal of the environment, but because they chose to forget. As their nail aged, too the memory was lost, rotten and disappearing entirely in the decay of stasis. Will decayed, minds decayed. All did but them, bodies and souls of Void and Pale Beings. 

They are the life that grows in the dark. The life that the lack of a light cannot harm, cannot starve. The night is their crib, their singular ally when all things turned their back on them, the darkness would shelter and preserve them forevermore, time not even daring to make itself known to them, beings beyond it, also unable to measure it. But it too was a simple life. Hollowed life. Not unlike the lives of the bugs they shared the wasteland’s night with. The haunting truth was that all beings could make it into the night were they only strong enough to defend themselves. In the laws of the Hunt, all beasts were subject to the same, and survived the luckiest, the mightiest. It was not as much of a life as it was survival, the stubborn repeat of a pointless cycle. To live in any other manner, to live at the cradle of a light is a privilege of a few. To have a mind and with it, a wieldable will, is a joy few got to experience, even less to the extent that the bugs of Hallownest had. To lose it was a fate worse than death.

For memories and will never lasted long out there. The things that marked a life beyond mere survival, they were precious. Things bugs carried like candlelight, in strong lanterns with little openings, not enough to light their path and with all effort placed on keeping them alive for as long as the journey took. A few managed to pass on that kindling light of thought to another, the capacity to hoard memory and all that implied for a few generations. By the third, there was no wax left to burn. In the battle of lights and the stasis beyond, there was always a winner, one that would outlast all bursts of will, all Kingdoms renewed, all candles lit. It was every light and life’s fate to die off, and permit the world to decay in nothingness, halt time as it took a break to breathe, and perhaps soon, perhaps never, allow another light to pass it by, lay the stones that the wasteland would spend eras covering, grow the plant life that would dry and its husks would serve as milestones for the few errant souls that crossed from nothing to nada.

They could not understand it, at first. Why bugs whose lives were so difficult out there as it was, insisted on hoarding memories and light as they did. Wasn’t their own husks enough charge to bear? They had never understood much, but they could recall pitying the few they saw, huddled together before campfire, speaking in words they did not understand, but the intonation spoke on its own, secretive manner, weaving with will secret intentions, meanings, where they had never seen any. They understood not, but they heard rage. They heard sorrow, and hope. And they felt pity. The light they carried was feeble, small, as if by diminishing itself it hoped to cross these wastelands unnoticed by the hostile environment, or perhaps to be pitied by it instead.

Hallownest still carried a little of that light. It lingered in suspension, on the very air of its emptied corridors and ancestral mounts. Remnants of light were like the stones at a hot spring, gone dry; not another drop of water would come its way, but if one neared its basin, pressed their chest against its bottom, the warmth could still be felt, lingering like a spirit. The candlelight was not yet entirely gone, but would not be refreshed either. It wouldn’t last too long, but for now, it was still everywhere, as if inviting the passerby to collect it, fill their lanterns one last time, before it cooled entirely. It was bidding them the time of preparation, this suspension but the last moments dust would hover before it too laid down, and this tomb would be sealed forevermore.

It would be no different from the wasteland that surrounded it, only harder to transverse but sheltered from the sands. With no light to renew those fires, bugs would retreat to that stasis they were so well-acquaintances of. They understood now, their desperation, their grief. They understood now, why they would carry those memories and thoughts wherever they went, fang and claw buried deep unto the concept of self until they were no more. They could only understand it, for now they had such things to call their own, and they knew they wouldn’t ever willingly part from it. 

To know oneself was to permit time into one’s life at their own pace and their own determination. It was to lay claim to what was given, and impose their own will upon it. It was to bear a name, to bear a purpose. To bear a mind, that not only willed, it felt, it sung, it mourned. It loved, too, in their own manner. They would not like to see it gone, either. Yet, they carried a brand above their eyes, smelt into their shell where no eyes could see unless a matching mark summoned it to reveal itself. When they took it, too they took responsibility for this Kingdom’s fate, and all those in it. It was their heart that sought a way, it was their attention that heeded by the implications of a Godseeker’s rambles, and it was their nail that they trained on, and chose to carve their path ahead of them like a valley of death.

It was them who brought an end to the last light. An end to the last being who would grant bugs thought, wills, dreams and memories. It was on them, the awareness that Hallownest was cooling and it would freeze the bodies below, be them living or dead. It was a cruel responsibility, passive of guilt, and nonetheless they stood by it. They could still make it. There were other Kingdoms beyond Hallownest, all those themselves strayed away from for in the stasis they belonged, and the strangeness of light never lured them, but rather, warded them off. A few, the strongest and the bravest, could make it beyond, or chose to endure here, sheltered from the sands, and pass by generations with no more thought than the very stone below their feet, but it too was a choice. Perhaps even a kinder choice.

To wander or to perish, either were still fairer than her rule. For in this last moment, they would be granted a last moment of choice, a last opportunity to hold the ones they held dear, fill their lanterns, and pick what was precious. Gather all that they understood as self, all that made them what they were. A name, a sound, a call. And with that, may it be a beacon of purpose, like a call had been theirs. May it lead them to where they must be, like the call that had been what brought them back to Hallownest, Kingdom they no longer knew, and through the wide gates of the King’s Pass, permitted them to be born into what they always were, and had always been. 

Their sibling had called them. Or one like them. Any of them, who were Ghost. Stronger by the world outside, uncharmed by the lull of light. One who had been given time, some time and any time, to grow their resilience before they grew a mind, and grew that resilience to influence from the world beyond. One who had the foundations to follow leads, wield purpose, before they wielded love. The skill of a construct, they supposed. A trait one had to be born with, leaning to it, and nurtured by difficult upbringing. Perhaps any vessel in their place, who had walked the path they walked, would have been Ghost of Hallownest. But as it turned out, it was them. Coincidentally, or intentionally, them.

To muse whether the world bent at their will or if they carved those valleys regardless of its wish, to wonder whether things simply fell into place like raindrops that always slid down, as fate had written, or if it was a mere coincidence that all drops did so, it was not their pastime. May time keep its secrets, as they carved it as they pleased, and let it wrap around the things they thought dearer and most important. While it served them, they had no qualms in how it worked behind closed doors - knowledge wouldn’t alter their purpose, time’s usefulness, nor necessarily would make the path ahead any easier. They left musing for those who so readily welcomed that mindful and soulful part of themselves. Ghost was still learning such, admittedly, and at an uneven pace.

Their current lesson was a cruel one. They had learnt love, plain and simple, and devastating as it could be. An emotion that held fast as the darkness stretched, perhaps one of the last to die, if it ever did. They doubted not it was something to outlast life. So deeply attached to one’s understanding of self, love was always among the things one carried. It was what made memories so precious, and duty worth anything. They had learnt it easily, and learnt it well. Learnt their manner of love, discreet but powerful, that could make them a weapon to tear at Goddesses wherever they hid, and made them scheme much harder than they thought themselves could. It was an emotion that inspired in them a patience they did not possess, and a loyalty they never handed anyone, or anything. They had learnt love well. The lesson that came after, grief, wasn’t nearly as natural to welcome, but equally and thoroughly devastating in its wake.

It only came after love. It existed where love employed their attention and dedication, yet they were not enough. Bewildering, this world of thinking bug and grand souls, a world where much could be solved with nail and determination, much indeed, but not all. Love for their kin demanded patience to wait for them to beckon, to raise from the Abyss at their own pace. Love for Hallownest’s diverse, simple, frail bugs, was the awareness that the ceiling would fall above them and they could not do anything besides watch, walk their side should they allow them to. Love for the one they shared half a blood with was to be willing to hold on these walls anyways, even if there was no use. 

Love for their sibling, was to know there was something in them that they could never heal, but nonetheless they were willing to try, for they could see it in them, despite the doubts they carried and the abandonment and hurt that sickened their soul, hope was still there. For anyone to see but them. They wanted help, they wanted a miracle. Hornet too wanted a miracle, and they knew that they could not deliver such, could not regurgitate the lights they had eaten in corroded, submissive half masses that at the threat of blade and never-ending darkness, would fulfill a role enslaved for their own wishes and desires. It was not possible, and they had sought for answers. The Godtuner, so tightly strapped to themselves, opened the way to a realm sitting on the minds of many. Their knowledge wasn’t sealed to them, but they knew not, either.

There were no Gods left to rule Hallownest besides themselves. And they could not provide what they so desperately needed. They could make a Kingdom for their kin, perhaps - one that would never hurt their kind, one where shades would roam free, unbound, and where time was only but an option, bent to their will and whatever manner of existence they chose to have with the memories they now had. But such a Kingdom wouldn’t be as fulfilling as a hostile but so lively Hallownest could be, nor would it be what all those they too loved needed the most. A Kingdom like the Abyss had no opportunity for love and grief to grow. Personality, might, thought. And those were what made life what it was, anyways. To miss on everything else, they were better off at the Abyss and needed not a whole Kingdom for it.

They were but a Knight, being summoned for reparation works. They could not create with weapons as tools. It was not what they were. And so, came in grief. The notion of loss, of something that they were not enough to achieve, not made to conquer. They were not acquaintances to limits, they supposed, although they were aware that at some point they would meet those and there was no devious problem-solving nor strength that would overcome it. They were seeing it now, and the emotion that came with it. A powerful, dreadful thing, called grief that they could only scarcely manage. 

_ “That spell of yours is working very slowly. I don’t know if I can do it for much longer.” _ They spoke, feeling that they had spent enough time as it was with their own thoughts, with the suffocating silence that cramped this small home, toxic with the emotion that they had been accused of not feeling, but alas, they did. Not their fault that their shell was as hard as stone, and their eyes were naught but crevices, carved in organic mask. They felt. They suffocated on the fumes that the living breathed out with their own louder, organic, tangible grief. Themselves mourned, but did not reek like they did. Their eyes, like any other pair in this room, didn’t meet the great nail they could see standing outside from the window of their temporary home.

They were not yet sure how to grieve. Part of them wanted to turn this Kingdom upside down in record time, and like how they solved everything - with time, their nail, Dreamnail and Godtuner - they would revert death. For they were willing to be introduced to limits sometime, in any other occasion really, any but this one. Yet, at another most rational part of their mind, they knew there was nowhere to run, nothing to conquer. It had been written, since the beginning of the end, that this would be their sibling’s fate. They knew this rain only poured downwards, mattered not if it was coincidence or fate.

It hurt less the less they thought and the more they acted. Thus, they had quickly accepted this request from their kin. Not all kin were of blood, some simply imprinted their place in the vast space of a voidheart with time, with kind words given, with the inspiration of the manner in which they tackled the world, so appealing to Hallownest’s last Knight. Such, was the bug before themselves. Kin for the contract they signed and were yet to regret it. Kin for likeliness, and mutual respect. These duties they had to uphold were naught but very welcome favours at this point. This one, that only themselves could aid with, was but one of them. Not only necessary for them to aid, it was a welcome distraction. 

“I am glad that it is working at all, my friend.” Grimm shared the trait of many successful wandering bugs. He knew much, lived passionately, was as resourceful as only one who had seen misfortune and misery could be, yet claimed to be Master of none of his crafts besides the show. A powerful Higher Being resided in himself, yet he claimed it not to be the most powerful, with the ease of one who had the Nightmare King’s approval and agreement to state such out loud. He could reach the minds of bugs, but not many at a time, and often for no purpose but petty ones like his own shallow, harmless amusement, and the gathering of more insight into the great tales he liked to write and share. He fought wondrously, a truly magnificent battle he weaved, but he wasn’t the greatest warrior Ghost had encountered. He could create spells, but they were shabby at best, not much better than a weaver still learning its trade.

_ “Fair enough.” _ What Grimm was best at was being mortal. The only Higher Being that they had heard of who bound himself to a mortal of his own making time and time again, and afflicted it with the everlasting grasp of time, tiredness, hunger and hurts. A lineage of demigods, as mortal as Hornet herself, albeit with more powers than common bug. He, who had seen the world at his own pace and certainly collected enough memories to fill several lifetimes with entertainment, one day soon the memories of Ghost’s own journey would fill that collection, for they had seen it done with company at their side, one they would dread to see part. 

As if he could hear their thoughts, the Grimmchild raised his head from his father’s lap to look at them. He was curled on the half of Grimm and his wing that wasn’t coated in Void. They had seen some evidence of Void poisoning in Hallownest, and never the result was merciful. They could feel it, sinking unto Grimm’s carapace and not only staining the moth’s wings, but also making its way up the thin, velvety surface, towards its roots. To explain this bloodbath he was in hadn’t been easy, not for him, for Ghost or for Hornet, who sat at the other side of the room with her head lowered. But Grimm had told it anyway, relaying the tale with none of his embellished words.

Their sibling was gone. An accident, the Troupe Master said. Something so small as bumping those horns of theirs in the wrong manner. It had been fast too, and as unpainful as it could be. They chose a resting place and asked Grimm to take them there, which the Troupe Master could not deny even if he wanted to. And he clearly didn’t want to. Ghost could recall it too well, the manner in which the Troupe Master’s eyes kindled when their paths first crossed. They knew not what it was that Grimm saw in their sibling, they  _ feared _ whatever that was, powerful and bold and terribly unknown, but they knew he meant no harm. But trust Ghost to be suspicious of a light’s passion anyway. That emotion, like all others of Grimm, they were a mystery. But they wondered if it was some kind of kinship what he felt then, for it to result in this kind of mourning. For now, those eyes met theirs with kindness, but no warmth behind them. 

Grimm had said once that he met grief with joy, a fierce dance and a last presentation to set everything aflame and bid the world farewell with intoxicating exhilaration. It was with a great last show that he bid every Kingdom its goodbye, it was his manner of mourning those who were gone, paying heed to those who wished more, and were so frightened at their last, but for a moment, he replaced those woes with the heat of his power before they too were off. He was the warmth of the last moment, and the harmless fear that reminded one at either moment what truly meant to be alive, and how it should be highly esteemed. But it was not what he was doing now, no. They wondered what details he kept from them and their sister when he handed his explanation. What things were those, that made him so strangely quiet now, and led him to think their sibling was not worth a performance. If they knew Hallow, they would have wallowed in thirteen different kinds of misery should they see the moth with his head lowered. 

They didn’t understand, no. Not the living, not Grimm, but they felt like they understood their sibling a little more than any other thing. Understood that their love for a light they would never understand fully. Would never understand their pride, their kind of devotion, the manner they lived so precariously yet with an intensity so sharp it beckoned Godseekers from all over the land. The strongest will, the deepest mind, luring in as Hallownest’s strongest God, only second to her who they would not let anyone come and face, be them challenger dreamer or Godseekers themselves. God of Nothingness, yet so wrongly named. They were anything but Hollow. 

Hallow suited them better. It was a consensus. And they knew that they would have loathed to see Grimm perish by their poisonous blood, so here they were. This was not the first spell Ghost had infused with Void, but those spells tended to be warbound, as all of them were. This was the first of its kind; drafted by the Nightmare King, it required time to focus, and it drew unto themselves the Void from whatever surface, including and not limited to the velvet of the moth’s wings, who were slowly draining from the darkness and just as slowly regaining their former colour.

Despite its simplicity, the spell did tire. But they would not forsake such a task. What Grimm had meant for their sibling, they knew not, but they knew what Grimm meant for themselves. They picked favourites in this world like they picked every path that presented itself. Their compass was their voidheart, their court of judgement, themselves and themselves alone. They welcomed information, any tip on the world beyond was welcome, and they would hoard those as if they were a scholar, seeking to record all they knew in tomes thick and heavy. But their path, the people they chose to favour, it was not up for debate. Grimm was such a creature.

A light they did not mind, for by the looks of it, an aloof light was like how a shadow like themselves experienced life. With strangeness, but intensely, with the feeling that this brightness would never last for long. They danced well, Grimm and them. And while they waited for Hornet to return to Hallownest, see the flowers they had placed at Hallow’s nail, and worked lethargically the Void out of the Troupe Master’s veins, they talked. He was not a Higher Being that challenged any, but rather seemed to pass by all others, with his own heart as compass. Wanderer, self-sustaining kin, the two of them. They had found in the Troupe Master a dear friend who once, heard all of their tales and shared many others. In his child, that themselves raised, they found one not unlike a sibling yet different, their Ward, who they felt a strange contentment on introducing to him this strange world themselves were ultimately born into and became unknown sovereigns over.

For few knew, and none seemed to acknowledge, but Hallownest was theirs now. By birthright, by the brand on their shell, and the power they wielded. But it was a Kingdom in need of repairs, and they were no light to fix it. It mattered not if they wished they could fix it for their sister, for their sibling, and all others here and below. For the one who deserved it the most, it was already too late, and themselves were no closer to achieving it now than they were before. Grimm too was the only one who acknowledged such silent claim upon Hallownest - he complimented them in their taller stature, horns peeking only a bit higher than Hornet’s, in a manner they supposed Hallow themselves would have done, for the Troupe Master and the former Hollow Knight both shared an intimate liking for formalities; They would have joined Grimm in greeting them with a simple bow that already seemed much too formal.

Their horns were not as thick or straight as their two closest siblings’. Their arch had become slightly sinuous near the ends, where the biforked points now no longer were of the same height, but the outer ones stretched longer than the inner edges. Vessels might be made of God and Void, but Hallow had only been minimally shade, minimally void, just enough to share kinship with them and little else. They were mostly of Pale Being and child of Lights, those tyrannical things, unsympathetic and undeserving of them. Vessels weren’t in-between creatures, they weren’t gray, but rather both black and white. Pale Souls and shells, laying the groundwork for great shades and immense powers. Or, in their sibling’s case, the opposite. A small linen of Void and shade, laying groundwork for a great mind, bright soul and an immense heart. Ghost's own Void was great enough to taint the shell it inhabited, suiting it to their own design. It blackened the tips of their horns and midway their length, spiraled down tendrils in exquisite patterns, in braided forms that seemed to seek their shell entirely, but still had quite a distance to cover. 

Grimm had said their crown of shadows suited them. That many times the Troupe left Kingdoms and saw in the carcass the eggs of another life, one that would meet hardships but would live on elsewhere, re-establish tribes who through generations and dedication, would make settlements not unlike the Mantis Tribe. Not a civilisation, but a manner of life. Difficult and accustomed to the dark, knowing little thought and even less of the world beyond, but still a worthy manner of living. Never before he had witnessed the birth of an entirely new Higher Being, of a kind so unique as their own. Not a light, not a great mind, not a vast soul nor a powerful dreamer. They were but a drowsy God, who only woke when challenged, and for long had remained unshaped, unliving, until it gathered on them, the result of a series of conditions finally met, a heir to a massive power that finally could roam the land. It was a strange being, not like anything the Nightmare King had ever seen before.

Like everything else, Ghost would have to cross that valley on their own. Discover the peculiarities of their existence and the power they wielded at a path of their own making. But not unaccompanied, they had been told; the Nightmare King offered his company in either Troupe Master or the child that soon would be his vessel. Neither seemed to be ready to part from them or Hallownest just yet, and while the ritual ought to be completed, Grimm also claimed to have no hurry. To be with his child was a joy, and in his words, tradition served to unite generations, not to wound and keep them apart. A delay was his, Ghost’s and Grimmchild’s will, then may it be delayed until any party was ready to see it through. And besides their company, Hornet’s. Who too inherited Hallownest, but hadn’t laid claim on the deceased Kingdom, no. Despite knowing that when she took on the mantle of Hallownest's Protector, she too took on the brand themselves did, and had as much claim to the fading Kingdom as themselves. 

For while she seemed so desperate to save it, so willing to die with the others under the weight of the crumbling caverns above, she did not take on a title and inheritance it was hers to take. As if she believed in Hallownest’s survival, more than any other, but not even her faith was absolute. She would not sign her name at Hallownest’s grave, as the one after a Pale King and one before a Lord of Shades. How she handled her grief and what kept her from laying that claim now, it was very much beyond their understanding. All they knew was that she was not handling it well. Those losses were mounting, Hallownest would be the last, and she perhaps had always handled grief in this manner, with brittle silences and barely contained violence. She had witnessed a miracle, seeing her long lost sibling walk out of that Temple on their own, and perhaps had thought that her era of mourning was over. She would have done anything and everything to see them well.

Yet, she hadn’t been here when they passed away. Neither had Ghost. She felt like she had done nothing for their lost sibling. So concerned she still was with her duties over Hallownest and protecting the Kingdom embodied in stone and the suddenly waking bugs that roamed it, that their sibling had wandered off on their own journey and she hadn’t given it much thought. And when their time came, she found herself having had, once again, no time with them. A window of opportunity lost, for she spent a lifetime fixing issues and salvaging a fading world, preserving it how she could, and she had never learnt how to preserve people. How to make time worthwhile with them, near them. The demigoddess in red was no better at this than a Vessel, no less abandoned than Hallow. No less grievous than they were.

And now, silence. It was an infection in its own right, and they loathed the weight it possessed. They knew no mourning but that was done through action, and they had much to do. If not, they would find things to do. The night was only but being born, and they had much to instill, much to protect. Many to watch survive it, when the darkness fell entirely upon Hallownest and the dust settled like seals over a tomb. They would protect, however they could. This was but the start of a life much longer than they ever thought they would live. And already a bitter one, with losses. A life birthed from the carcass of their sibling, the one they did not save. But they could honour them.

“...What is your plan now, Lady Weaver?” The silence mustn’t be getting only to themselves, they thought. Grimm spoke up and his words were quiet, his eyes a faint light not invasive nor competing with the lumafly lantern at his side, on the table near the chair he had taken. At his lap, the Grimmchild displayed a strange quietness - he tended to share the Ghost of Hallownest's despise for idleness, but perhaps he had learnt to read the room. He had come a long way from a small grub that thought little and remembered nothing of the paths they crossed into this being of now, clever and deadly and inquisitive. It hadn't been a lonely journey, nay. As themselves had been born, grown and learned the moment they entered Hallownest, the Grimmchild had a similar journey at their side, although only a bit younger than themselves. 

Their fingers kept working the void off Grimm’s wings like one untangled furs, with digits longly scraping the velvet of its surface, feeling the spell do its work by raising the Void that sunk on themselves rather than the moth’s blood. A transfusion of inverted values, to remove it from the Troupe Master restored some of the strength he had begun losing, but did not particularly strengthen the Knight. It was necessary now, and they refused breaks on their task unless they had no other choice or if their fingers began aching. They had fingers now. As well as a sturdier, less malleable carapace. They could feel the platting more firmly, shielding their body that still was soft at joints but twice as resilient. Their fingers bore no claws, but were considerably longer, as themselves were. They would have to review their battle skills, they thought, with the added weight of their horns and the change on their grip. 

Perhaps sooner than they thought, for Hornet’s reaction came so suddenly that they felt their nail arm seeking the nail at their back immediately, not losing a moment to grasp it and bring it to their side, losing their focus on the void-embedded spell. The weaver was up in a pinch only a second after the words had left Grimm's mouth. When he had caught her up to what happened, she had not reacted well, and that burst of anger had never felt truly solved, perhaps only shelved for another moment, to continue at the next opportunity. Like now, sparkled by his mere voice. It always only took the smallest sparks to kindle the souls of bugs. At the small plaza of Dirtmouth, her voice had raised loud enough to gather the attention of its few inhabitants, who dared to peek from doorways and windowsills but wisely did not intrude.

"Do not dare to direct your word to me. Not when you hide where they last went, not even granting me the right to see it for myself!" Her anger wasn't entirely unfounded. Ghost had found that bugs took, when they could, a particular care for their dead as the means to mourn them, perhaps to make up for things they could not do or provide in life. Hallownest was so full of tombs and cramped with spirits who went not to rest. Those rites not always signalled a being's importance in life, but those with tombs almost always were either remarkable or thoroughly mourned. Hallow was both. It made sense their sister wanted to see it, confirm with both of her own eyes that they were indeed gone, and see that something was done to remember them, like the statue at the fountain square. Before the world's unfairness to one so dear, they shared her wishes to treat at least memory right. A strange emotion, sympathy, that made Ghost think it wrapped thought so strongly and so subtly it was nearly dangerous. They were wary of it, but also, entirely at its mercy at times. 

But Grimm had explained they had given Hallow his word on not revealing that location. Their sibling was a prideful being indeed, they thought. They shared of Hornet's concern and curiosity, for as they brought their focus inwards, and carded their mind like long fingers over the surface of a black lake, they felt many things. A few voices, young and inexperienced in this world, but who had caught a glimpse and it was enough to inspire a voice into them. Primal in their emotions, unfocused on their desires, but willing to heed by their own wishes, their own basic emotions and curiosities. They felt many of those and the weight of their souls, and they would have felt Hallow's own there, should their shade have made it back to the Abyss. But apparently, it hadn't. It must have been too faint by the time they passed away. Too hurt, too unwilling to die or move on. It hurt them to the point of pain to think they would not have their sibling back, not even at the Abyss, and that one such great soul was lost to nothing. They mourned, the entirety of the Lord of Shades mourned. They had looked forward to welcoming their sibling.

To mourn through action and violence surely was a familiar method. But they could not blame Grimm blindly for it, not like Hornet did. She had been guarding Hallownest for too long, and saw in Grimm a stranger, a foreigner and a possible threat. The prejudices of the bugs of civilisations that had to fight for territories and trade in matters that were not only the nail. These were arts, experiences and charges they knew not. Ghost knew not to take offense in such, for themselves had been seen in such a manner, once, and her views of them had changed. But grief seemed to have been piling at the weaver, as time grew thin and all hopes for the living were dwindling. Her composure was wearing thin, after so long. But they would not let her make a scapegoat out of Grimm, no. 

In the small and dark home, their pure nail, an impossibly well crafted thing, gleamed as sharply as her spotless needle. Two unique weapons, drawn but at a stalemate. There was only enough room to clash them, but not evade. But it wouldn’t get to it. Their sister was hurt and tearful, but not entirely blind. Their immediate draw of a nail was unnecessary, but it was their only form of quickly answering her outburst. They had no voice to tell her the things they wished they could tell her, and there was no time or opportunity to write it. To draw it was enough interruption. And spoke enough, as well. For her eyes never left theirs, and her fingers tightened on her weapon for a moment, before she lowered it and dropped back on her seat at the opposite side of the room, her needle resting once more across her lap. She lowered her hands into the palms she held open, ready to catch her face.

Pained them to see her cry, even when there weren't anymore tears for her to shed. Her tearless despair and hopeless anger was far worse, somehow, than to see her wipe tears to the sibling she hadn’t had the chance to properly meet. The Ghost of Hallownest let their nail return to their back, and with only the sound of a flutter of wings, soon the weight of Grimmchild came upon their shell, perched between their horns, fingers holding on them as his chest and body hung on the vessel’s back. Grimmchild was far more clever than he let out. He must have been ready to join any battle, but for once didn’t fire first. He too had grown to see her as kin, even if she did not return the feeling towards the mothling. 

The child’s warmth was foreign, but also a comfort. Company used to be a stranger, and certainly to be alone was their normal, the nature of their existence. But they felt they would never be truly alone again. Not with the Lord of Shades concealed within their shell, laced around their heart and making them feel anything but alone. That warmth too had been a stranger, but now was the company they thought difficult to imagine their journeys without. It was part of their battle gear at this point, to count on their Ward for a supply of fire and another pair of eyes to guard their back. Any journey of theirs seemed to remain a walk into uncharted, unexplored territories. Yet, it felt as if no more that exploration of theirs would ever be done on their own. 

They turned their head to Grimm, reaching to that attunement the Nightmare King stretched into their minds and permitted the Troupe Master to hear their thoughts. Grimm sighed, before speaking up at their request, twice as careful with his intonation. “...Our Ghost says that you two should keep to the plan. Hallownest awaits, both in and above the Abyss. It is not fair to leave them at the mercy of others.”

There was always something in Hallow that they could not heal. They had become powerful, yes, had learnt how to transverse the world of dreams at the slide of a nail through air, had learned to push themselves unto the mind of seekers, and even now, at this world, they could feel that two-ended attunement, adding to their own godly focus, should they wish to wield it. They had breached into this world livid, confused and battle-bound, and could do so again. But it did not make them all powerful. And the wounds Hallow carried, most of them were not in their abilities to heal. A pale soul and a pure heart were not things that the Void could tamper with besides either kill or embrace, and none of those would have helped Hallow and prevent the inevitable. What would have prevented it was if an era ago, they hadn’t been left at the mercy of lights.

Not all lights were unkind or thoughtless. Grimm at their side stood as proof, wondrous exception. But without him, they would have had all the reasons to abhor their existence entirely. Selfish things, who inspired and wounded, gave and took, heeding by their own mysterious and rigged scales. No more, they supposed. If a light sought to install itself once again in Hallownest, be it in the next era or the one beyond, they would find the Abyss here, waiting. The Lord of Shades, summoned by that abuse, wouldn’t remain static any longer. Hallownest could profit from a light, any light. Perhaps that was what was making Grimm linger here and not hurry the ritual as he had once done - perhaps he was considering taking on the role, something Ghost would not oppose.

But if that was something passing on the moth’s mind, it mustn’t be any easy decision. It happened entirely in the secrecy of his mind and was not met with eagerness, but rather a dreaded, unwilling but present sense of responsibility. He could not be a King, he had no rights to that claim, but a light would be welcome to prevent Hallownest from fading into nothing but dust. They thought it unlikely, but should it happen, they would be in Grimm's shadow. They trusted him, yes, but they had taken on a duty towards Hallownest’s fate. If he failed, they would be there to catch the Kingdom in its fall. If a light went astray, may their existence be a threat and promise. They weren’t leaving this Kingdom and their sibling’s tomb, this entire Kingdom that too was their namesake.

Speculations such as these brewed rampant in these uncomfortable, long silences, like the stagnated smell of this house, much too old and dusty. They walked back to Grimm’s side, offering the moth a hand. The Troupe Master met their eyes and stretched an arm and wing to them, letting the Ghost of Hallownest focus on their spell once again and resume their work. There wasn’t much Void left at the Troupe Master, nothing but a few drops they worked diligently on draining. They would be careful, for they were not in a time schedule. They were restless, but they weren’t going anywhere without Hornet. They trusted her on knowing what to do, how to coordinate the situation down in the Kingdom below, and most importantly, she was the one with a voice. If she needed the time to mourn their sibling, then they would stand by her as she did so. Like they would have stood by them. If Hallow had needed an entire era to find themselves, they would have stood by them for as long as it took. There was no restlessness nor wanderlust that would have kept them from guarding their side.

“...We keep to the plan, then.” Hornet broke the silence, her head only minimally raising from her palms, dark eyes only faintly reflecting the lantern’s light. There used to be a spark in the Weaver’s eyes. One that they had seen kindling up in Hallow when they had left the Abyss. A bit of hope, laced with the beheld of a challenge they were up to meet. Hornet was lacking that, as of now. Anyone’s guess if that hope would return to her, or if they were witnessing the last of it, and was here to witness yet another of their kind to perish to that taint of hopelessness. The Ghost of Hallownest wasn’t strangers to death, to endings with unbecoming tragedies of good bugs and kin. Nonetheless, the thought ached. To love apparently was to live crippled with aches. 

And each one seemed to have their own manner of dealing with those. Their own they knew what it was. It was a temple of gilded gold, atop shimmering clouds and vast hot springs, with galleries full of statues wherein they could meditate and find themselves along the length of their nail, the coordination of their spells. To mourn was to dig through this land and shape it to their will, to braid the stones in the maze below or through Pantheons beyond. It was how they wished they were handling their grief, how they were bringing peace to the stirring void in their blackened heart, for it wasn’t only them who mourned their sibling but all of them did. It wasn’t only themselves that they had to comfort, bring answers and offer solutions.

They too needed to feel like they had some agency in this world. Standing witness to so much disgrace did take a tool. On them, and on her. Their eyes followed the figure of Hornet, who took her nail and bag and quickly walked to the door of their home, pulling it open for herself to vanish into the vast world beyond. Their fingers halted at Grimm’s wing, then stopped. There wasn't a need for a word, they supposed, for when they looked at the Troupe Master, his eyes were set on theirs already. “Thank you, my friend. I think this is enough. In a few days I should recover fully.”

The Ghost of Hallownest only nodded slightly. Not much, for the Grimmchild remained perched between their horns, eyes set on their father but still sticking by the Knight. Wordless, unspoken, unacknowledged comfort. Their secret language of strange companionship, smelted in the caverns and lakes below. The small moth was too much like themselves, they thought. He should spend more time with Grimm, for he wasn’t making any efforts on learning how to talk despite being able to spit a few words out, clearly understanding but most interested in communicating like Ghost did, through fire and noise. In silence, they communicated through cues and glances, like Knights through their change of stance. But being mute was Ghost’s curse, not Grimmchild’s. And if not to learn to speak, then to enjoy his father at least, while he still could.  _ “When you are well I will finish your ritual.” _

They had no urgency on seeing Grimm or the Grimmchild go, no. But they had to see loose ends being tied, mysteries solved, and most importantly, when things grew dire in Hallownest and their attention was entirely set on aiding their sister, they did not want either moth to be here to witness that pitiful end. A few stragglers, choosing the wild life in the caverns, not unlike a mindless beast. A few others, readying themselves to roam the wastelands beyond. Themselves, staying, once they saw that Hornet and all those that wanted to live had safe passage out of Hallownest. 

Perhaps this was that pride that their sibling knew so well, carried so well in an indistinguishable manner, in which Hallow seemed to think the worst of themselves and yet impose on a shoulder’s width and the raise of horns that they would be the only ones allowed to think so lowly of themselves. Their standards towards themselves were monumental and as such, permitted no judge of those but themselves. A pride that would prefer to walk on their own into their deaths, and have no witnesses to the ordeal, only the vague knowledge that they had gone, had fought, had lost, but had been brilliant through it. A strange pride that wouldn’t mind loss, as long as others were well. A pride that harmed less than it benefited oneself and others. A gentle, pure pride, untarnished by the darkness of bugs’ hearts and their greed. Even now, their sibling was teaching them much. How to live, how to name the things at their own heart.

They were twins, born of entirely different hearts and different minds. Inverted reflections, in more ways than one, yet nonetheless they were reflections. They could see some of themselves in Hallow. And see only the best of Hallow in themselves, too. That pride, strange and forlorn thing, pulled at their heart now. It made them think that if Grimm would not stay and Hornet inevitably would have to leave, then they hoped there weren't many around to mourn or ask why they stayed. For the answer might be difficult for one who wasn’t them to understand; they had a duty to this land, a brand, and an Abyss. They were the Shade Lord, and they were Hallownest’s last ruler. They would miss these people, of course. If they could, they would have all kin gathered in a single place, Troupe, friends and siblings.

But they couldn’t do that, not with Hallownest’s decay. And if they asked, they feared in part that they would stay with Ghost once they heard the answer, and pay an horrid and terminal price for that. Hornet would stay and end up no better than those beasts controlled by the infection. They would not ask such a thing, would rather avoid it entirely. Those thoughts weren’t particularly welcome, but they filtered them not either; their decision was made with no hesitation, and their desire would be met. Ghost was not one composed of uncertainties and hesitation. But as they focused on what stood before themselves, they knew they weren’t nearly as good at concealing their thoughts as their sibling was, for Grimm watched them intently, as if waiting for them to be done so he would talk. “...Will  _ you _ be well, my friend? My tent is always open for visiting, as I am certain you know.”

This was not their field of expertise and partially, they abhorred addressing the subject. They were not Hallow. They knew not how to muse forevermore on a subject and have options sorted like a tapestry ahead of themselves. They were not them to be fine with themselves and swim with open arms into whatever thought and emotion they were faced with. May they swim, may they drown, their sibling faced those nonetheless with the expertise of one that had fooled a God into thinking they were hollow. To hear an offer of aid and know how to answer it, to choose their words… All those were skills of a brighter, soulful sibling, and not them. The Ghost of Hallownest only nodded again, wiping their hands on their own mothwing cloak as if seeking to dry it from a Void that did not wet those hands.  _ “Thank you, Grimm.” _

The Troupe Master nodded, moving to stand himself from the only chair of their small home. He didn’t look nearly as bright as he usually did, but alas, he would indeed need a while to recover entirely. His hand moved to gently pet the one between Ghost’s horns, the horns of his own spawn, carrier of his name and legacy and yet, one Grimm knew he wouldn’t spend much time with. It never seemed to be something to bring him sadness, however. That awareness didn’t make him want to distance himself from the child, nor made him desperate to hold him for every precious, passing second. As if the moment he was born, Grimm had simply stepped into a secondary role and let the child choose for himself what his beginning journey would be. His duty but one to manage everything he was given and worry not for whatever fate held for him - the Troupe Master simply cherished what he was given. 

Ghost found themselves wondering if it made him happy or if he simply knew no other kind of life. It led them to the dreaded thought of wondering if themselves were ever happy, now or ever, or if their battle-bound, conqueror lifestyle was simply the only kind of life they ever knew. Did wanderers ever settle? Ghost would, now. They weren’t sure how they felt about it, no. Like grief, they hoped to manage that too as it came, with a nail in hand and their mind well focused. “...Grief is an odd thing, Knight. Tread through it however you think best.”

They could only but nod once more. Higher Beings were odd, they supposed. By the looks of it, the Pale King had been distant from his subjects, never one to walk much around them. Unn dreamt her kin then slept, and never cast her eyes unto them again. By Hornet’s words, the White Lady healed and cared but seemed to be strange and distant of the woes of people. As if her emotions were so different, so complex and exquisitely braided that the woes of common bug passed her by rather emptily. Then, there were the moth twins. Extremely personal Higher Beings, so strangely knowledgeable when it came to what lay in one’s hearts that they could bring up their greatest and deepest wishes - or fears - from the innermost reserves of one’s heart.

Powerful in such a discrete manner, devastating in screaming lengths. But while the Radiance wielded wondrous dreams for ill intentions, Grimm seemed to only stretch his power a bit deeper, a bit warmer into their mind. He carded through their terrors and all that he brought up was a simple fear. A bit of guidance, from what he could read like a tablet. The Ghost of Hallownest, and why not, the brand new yet ancient Higher Being they were, were just so strangely confused and lost at what to do with the grief they had. They were no subtle being. They were blunt, powerful, and yet, so woefully ignorant.

_ “...I think I will catch up with my sister. She has lost enough on her own, she never had company to help her bear such weights.” _ Their reasoning seemed fair. This reminded them of the other moment where they saw her grief, and it had been at the chambers of the one Dreamer she had for mother. They hadn’t known for sure then, until they woke to find Hornet there, sitting at the edge of her mother’s bed, her back turned to the stone now empty of the Beast’s body. As if facing that absence wounded her too gravelly.

She hadn’t lashed out to them like she had to Grimm. But the stakes too were different, perhaps her mother’s eventual death was something she had been preparing for a long date. She treated them cordially. But the moment they turned around, she had left the room, as soundless as any Deepnest dweller, gone into the darkened region and perhaps beyond. Not one that knew or wanted company in her grief, yet they doubted that could be helpful now. Not if it was amounting as it was. If she needed company, that was something they could offer. Hopefully they could do more than just be a silent company and they could actively help somehow. To act was their own manner of mourning and they needed it too. 

“None of you have ever had company to bear such weights.” Grimm corrected them, his fingers letting go of the Grimmchild’s own horns to fold once more within the shelter of his mothwings. Knowing eyes all but looked at them, yet seemed to know more than even themselves did. Behind that glow, they could so easily see the reddish wraith that composed the true Higher Being within, the embodiment of the Nightmare Heart and all the generations of Troupe Masters that composed it. There was wisdom in there, wanderers were wise and they were staring at the King of those.

Within their own hollowed eyes, maybe the moth too could see the many gleaming ones of the Shade Lord within. So unaccustomed with these woes of being alive. Entirely unhurried with learning those, too, and entire strangers with their own living heart. A being bewildered to be alive in the first place, surprised to find in themselves emotion, when all it knew was will, will to braid stone, will given, will led to purpose. Everything else was a dabble in the dark for the darkest of them all. They were never meant to live as a singular, embodied thing. But they were here, either way. Born and made. They would make sense of this living eventually, they hoped. “...Do be with her, it is a wise choice. You two are stronger together.”

And they were, they supposed. They nodded one last time, before walking to the table to fetch their bag and slip it under their cloak. They readied their tools, checked their monarch wings, devious little constructs, a living spell that they wondered if they could embed with Void. To attempt at some other time, they supposed. They went to the door, and handed Grimm a look one last time.

Did the moth have a manner to handle with grief, if not with his performances and a farewell worthy of a Kingdom? Wasn’t he in need of company too? Went unanswered, they supposed. Grimm seemed certain about how he felt, he carried himself with no weight on those emotions, but rather as one who knew them all and could wield them as he saw fit. A good rest and grief too would be healed, as if it was nothing but as scratch. Was it so easy however, or just how it looked like? 

The Ghost of Hallownest knew not. But they knew they were only but one, and their sister most certainly needed the company. Handle their grief or not, time was passing slowly, slower, and soon would stop in Hallownest. Those who stayed would be frozen beyond its passage, and those who escaped would find hardships but perhaps, and only perhaps, would find another place for themselves to live. Maybe even thrive. They didn’t think so far ahead for themselves, no. One moment at a time, until time was all but a singular moment everlasting, merging unto the end of this era and the beginning of another, far ahead and outliving all. Time but a slippery, malleable thing for their perception.

And now, they had Hornet to aid. A Hallownest to bury along their sibling, and once the dead and the mourners were handed their destination, they would close the gates. The Sentinel of a graveyard, and wherein the spirits would roam free, shades unbound by shell, they could wander however they saw fit, even beyond the gates should they be willing to clad shell and wield nail. That would be an eternity, and yet, a simple moment. They feared it not. But they would miss the living, and the things they had grown to like so much from the living. Their drives, their passions. Their differences to their immutable self.

They would enjoy burdens, trials and blessings as they came, as a wanderer faced whatever valley stretched before themselves. But this one clearing of life they would find themselves looking back at. They weren’t certain still if wanderer hearts could ever settle, could ever find reason to wish to stay by and live, suffering all of these blessings and woes. But it was tempting to try. They would wander, for it was their nature to wander through time, so was Grimm’s nature. But they supposed they would look back to life and wish it had lasted longer, been different, every single time they looked back. If only there was another way.

If this was but the smallest taste of being alive, they wondered how it must be like for one nearly wholly of soul and mind to dwell on those things. They had suffered, they imagined. Their own ignorance felt almost like a blessing. But also, a bit of envy. To love so much and ward off death as long as they had done… It was a feat to rival their own will. Indeed twins, although of different minds. One uncaring, chosen to live forever. One good and lively, chosen to die.

They parted their eyes from Grimm’s before opening the door and charging their Crystal Heart. Its energy crackled, and Grimmchild knew what to expect. He took on the airs, before folding unto himself, readying to use his own skills to keep up with Ghost’s trick. And with a burst of release, they left the home behind themselves, to speed off into Dirtmouth and beyond. After their sister, whom they could only guess where she went. They were fast, and knew this land well. They would find her, sooner or later. 

No kin would be left behind, at the mercy of the world or of their own unkind hearts. 

_ A Wyrm's life is of no beginnings nor endings _

_ But an endless metamorphosis from a purpose to another  _

_ Atop the hourglass Our light drips in countless foretellings _

_ Cascades into forgottenness and darkness under _

_ Prisoners of the cycles of time none founded and all suffer _

_ We harness it now but Our dusk looms near _

_ A Wyrm is wise to know once fall begins one may not recover _

_ Nonetheless We dream of breaking wheels so both can persevere _

Yet another ballad decorated stone for only a brief while, before it was wiped from its surface by a pale hand, dismissing the light that etched it as if it was but lingering fumes, coiling over its surface. As he saw it, wordsmithing was but an incorrectly named art of the choice of words, that supposedly composed great pieces with each word standing like a herald of great concealed meanings and gateways into enlightenment and a broader understanding. It was only sometimes the case. Far more often and very frequently, wordsmithing was but an art of the unspoken, an art of silence, its disruption but a statement so loud, so much like a wrongdoing, and like an incomplete melody, it was used in a composition to astound and upset with what was by all means a sensory, obvious flaw.

Perfection, beyond what even himself could reach, was understanding delivered in silence. The greatest wordsmithing was the enlightenment bestowed upon no words, no sounds, but the communal beholding of an angle of the world, life and time, and in dark, sterile kinship brewed that light so bright no words could convey. He thought himself only a good composer but a terrible poet, his music could reach many, achieve that kinship in silence, light from darkness, but his silences rarely delivered the same effect, his cues scarcely enough to bring to mind the meanings he intended. But he knew the greatest poet to ever walk the earth in his own standards, to ever reside in the minds of bug, even if not many at that.

The poet could be heard approaching, casting shadows below heavy and etched doors, sealed tight with an enchanted mechanism of pressure, heat, cogs and chains, that would not budge with any other key but the one he singularly bore concealed against his chest, seared against the white plating over his small, fragile heart. As the light below the door became eclipsed and stilled, he counted the seconds. Too long a while the poet took, yet the while was brief enough to play with his thoughts, leave him wondering, doubting, then shedding away thought in the silence's interruption. Perfection in silence was this, something he beheld at every moment spent, and like the greatest arts it was a great mirror, offering to himself a reflection on everything he ever felt, ever thought, ever did, and much, much more. It was a cruel tool, but also the most wondrous thing he had ever seen. 

His poet knocked thrice, a statement in the pattern repeated without flaw, but a peace on the firm but kind sound. A gentle waking to duty, the kind mercy of a loving heart, or the sterile thoughtlessness of one incapable of more? The poet always knew the answer, but played their art masterfully, not ever faltering in their wordsmith of absolute and spotless silence. An art was not something to have an interpretation and meaning handled as the artist envisioned, but rather something to elicit an emotion. It was made for one to behold and create upon themselves every grasp of its elements, every understanding, and produce something worthwhile, genuine and as truthful as any other on their own. They had turned a disability, a curse, into the most beautiful and powerful of arts he had ever witnessed. And it had never been his intention to make it so, nay. But every day was a new discovery, a new wonder. 

He had a problem, and sought desperately for a solution. He found something else entirely, foresight doing what it did best and granting him new visions and paths beyond what he could imagine, as a servant of time and order as he was, his relief from such manacles resided at his own temple of dream and thought that could behold beyond what any other kin could. And what he found was a problem greater than the woes of yesterday, today and tomorrow. The true ailment was but one that repeated itself constantly, and remedying its symptoms time and time again never could cure it, not that he ever hoped to, but to behold nature and its incessant cruelty had always been something that upset him greatly. Thus, the tyranny of time came to his mind as a foe much greater than any other that might plague Hallownest - time was a cycle that plagued all thoughtful beings, and would plague every Hallownest to ever exist. 

The Wyrm did find too an impossible solution to a problem that existed perhaps only in his head. Like an academic, the rules of the world, the woes of court, things either too massive or too minimal always drew him in, as either greater missions or a manner to escape the most pressing matter at hand. It was selfish, yet not quite - idealistic and aloof, highly distant from the most immediate need of bugs, yet not exactly selfish in nature. This problem and solution was not something himself would ever reap. It was not a solution to save him, or anyone, but all, those who would be born and those who would not. It was the hope of something greater than simply medicating symptoms of a terminal disease and seeing a moment of lucidity, another of unconsciousness, that would never last. And thrall to such, the patient was one who never truly lived but rather walked carrying the chains of the looming, oppressive weight of time. The burden of a light’s mind, not only his but any like him. His time would end, as the time of all lights ended. The night would be sovereign, a silence without thought, then disrupted by brightness and loudness once again. The never-ending cycle would spin like this forevermore, pulling and pushing beings from the greatest to the smallest in its thrall.

He let the brand on their chest glow, and with it, the doors of his workshop opened, revealing the figure beyond. Nearly as tall as himself was, clad in silk that concealed their dark body underneath a spotlessly well architectured shell. His solution to the entire world and the time that bound it was a poet, of immaculate silence and indistinguishable gestures, yet so many cues that the world revolved within that darkness, there was light in the bottomless of those eyes, and the perfect wordsmithing was made and walked. There was no wordsmithing in empty silence, it resided in purposeful, soulful, intentional silence. Wordsmithing was hidden in the brands of silence and the many ways it could be invoked. The Pure Vessel was such a spotless poet. And was both the most loved and hated thing he had ever done in his life.

The cost was too great. He had given it all, truly, and he regretted it not. If time spun, then another would inherit the spot he had once inhabited, and it mattered not what kind of being that was, one of his breed, the Radiance, or a complete stranger, he would not be here to behold or even be judge of such a light’s worth. In his most primal, basic, and flawed heart, he had a desperate hope that it was his kin. For life was a lonely thing, particularly to one like a Wyrm, to have met his Lady was a miracle undescribed, unmeasured, and he was eternally grateful for being the one blessed with such possibility of seeing his kind not die in him. And such an emotion, as visceral and yet natural as it might be, was a gateway to the rivalry he had bought with time itself. For he would suffer, dragging his chains and feeling time's weight upon him in no manner that common bug felt but in ways much worse. 

What he had suffered, he wished no other would. Even less his progeny. This child of three parents, different due to the singularity of their birth, was not made only to challenge a light and harbour them, although it is the only dreadful mission he would raise and sacrifice them to. But never its ultimate goal. They were the hope embodied like a hammer, they were the break of an endless cycle that perhaps his kin would inherit, perhaps another would. They would be that perfect poetry, the thought in silence, the soul in Void. Achiever of impossible things, and truly immutable before time. Everything else was but smaller, fainter hopes - if the Radiance was triumphant at the end, if Hallownest saw none of Wyrm blood ever again or if it would someday be festering with them, those were hopes. Speculations. Mundane wishes, brewed in a visceral heart.

He was putting an end to cycles of time. For in this heir, lived both day and night. No dawns nor twilights, but rather a midday strong within that soul, pale and pure and potentially as massive as his own, capable of kindling a Kingdom in their wake. Also a midnight of silence, the immutable dark that handed nothing and at face value, consumed all, harboured nothing, felt nothing beneath that bottomless pit. They existed for the Pale King’s hopes that he voiced to none and wrote nowhere, but this wasn't only his heir. To break time was to make peace with the thing entirely controversial and opposite to himself, and he had done so, making no request of promise, only taking the first step himself, a leap of faith of immeasurable cost. He handed the Void his children, and prayed that it too would see the opportunity of freedom, of walking this land free of bindings. He had sired not only her children, but his ultimate death and enemy's own.

The Wyrm dreaded it not. He could never  _ not _ love the spotless poetry before himself. Time, the cost, the madness of having his children's blood on his hands and the awareness this might all have been for naught would eventually take him, and he would face every day until them as bravely as he could, pulling arrangements as they were needed. It would hurt enough to end him, he knew. To mourn his children, and the Root he knew would rather never see him again. He was not so strong, so spotless, so immaculate, to think that hurt wouldn't cave him in despite all hope and deliver to him his ultimate end. 

But alas, he was a Wyrm. He was ready to die when a purpose was set before his eyes and he ought to change, raise and meet it. And that would be so. He climbed off his chair slowly, leaving the tablet aside as he stretched his many limbs after a while too long in the same position. More and more he was spending time here in no particular pursuit but rather in idleness. Musing, reviewing, seeking flaws where he still hadn't found any. He beckoned the vessel forward, and they did so with no hesitation, their steps but an even, unaltered speed that never hurried and never stalled, but rather progressed across the world always at their own pace. It spoke volumes in its silence. Once they stopped before him, and casting a low bow, the Pale King brought his hands to a lowered shell and raised it to face his own eyes.

In the deadly ink within its hollow eyes laid his end, yet, also his own hope. He knew not what would come to the future, their foresight had given him an option potentially successful but hadn't assured on its outcome. If there would be no heirs or millions, it seemed as fickle and uncertain in the manner only the future could be. But he had freed them of the cyclical burdens of time. They would be enlightened and never forget, never lose it, never starve at a light's absence, but live with more than any other could. The night would be a home like any other for determination and personality, should they wish it so. And too could they live under whatever glow stretched upon the land, another home that grew thought and will, and would aid them in finding themselves. Heirs of two Houses. The cost too was one of uncertainty, and never knowing the outcome, if that hope would ever be so.

To cost was loving his kin so much that he was willing to punish himself for as long as he could with their presence, and manage them with that poetry they delivered so well, for it too was uncertain whether or not the Radiance would be kept from possessing this one being too, but in case she could, he would buy them time by starving them of his light and words. He would starve their soul off a love she would use against them if she could. He had a hurry to see them grown and sealed for the least they knew, the less they would suffer at her rage. And that cost… It was unbearable to carry, most days. That he carried it anyway so was the ultimate punishment, the manner in which it tore at his heart was much worse than anything she could build to torture him if she could reach his dreams. This was much worse, for it was his own doing, his own choice.

All for a hope. The vessel was a being of wordsmithing, and equally badly named. It wasn't a vessel but an heir, meant to inherit both worlds. They were the revolt of the sands, who slammed at the suffocating and torturous glass of the hourglass that imprisoned them all. They were the hybrid of the one above and the one below. Midday and Midnight. Balanced on prayers and hopes that things would sort themselves and die out, and in another time, another kingdom, one or millions would come and inherit a Hallownest in whatever state, at night or at daylight, and they would outlive it all, perhaps take on their birthright and stretch that stability for the land itself. Be them the light and dark, and no time would reach to take them for they were both, and were free.

Remained uncertain what would happen to this one, however. The one he loved the most, the one he found himself broken by, every time. His strongest prayers were always that they wouldn't suffer much, but buy Hallownest time to escape, to ready itself for stasis for it was then that Hallownest would chose - when the Radiance was sealed and the Pale King died, they would finally chose whether to leave or to persist here, and the last one had as many chances of death as there was of surviving. That was the moment they would, in their ignorance, be able to choose to place their bets in a Hallownest eternal or leave that hope of timelessness. He had arranged everything, a seal to prevent the Abyss to be interfered, the window of choice for Hallownest's survival, the unique composition of his progeny all but potential for greatness pending.

The only one he could not do anything else for was the one at the centre of it all. The one he chose to spearhead this plan, and that would tilt on their shoulders for the last time that dreadful hourglass. The one who would suffocate under the sands. Maybe they would outlive it, and see that potential at the end of it all. See all he had done, and see the reason for it all. Maybe he would be blessed with the ultimate mercy of simply dying when suffering became too great. The Wyrm knew not. He was a terrible poet, and knew his wordsmithing didn't translate well. The vessel would never know from cues how much he mourned and how much he loved. He spent many nights like this, wondering what he could do for them. What they could leave behind.

He chose, finally. Soon, his badly named Pure Vessel would grow and be sealed. If they survived, he could only imagine it would be crippled in an awful manner, resenting this world for what it was. The Wyrm was old, and progeny tended to forget their progenitor too had lived before their birth, and felt many woes and disappointments of his own. None the same, but many similar. In their place, he could imagine it was how they would feel. Betrayed, wounded, abandoned, and very much unloved. He knew that he could not alter that, nor the actions that would lead to that hideous moment. But should it ever be too much, should it ever carry them to their end, they had something reserved for this vessel, blessed and cursed by being the one who answered his call.

He sought for the vessel's mind, their heart. It wasn't there. It was a sterile miasma, not yet too developed, but where there was soul, there was potential for a mind, and they knew that it would be a matter of time. Either here or at the Radiance's hands, a mind would be born and grow. And when it crumbled everything under its weight, they placed a secret within it. 

What was inheritance but something one was capable of achieving, yet it was handed down mostly sorted out? In all vessels laid the potential of Kings, heirs, lights, shades and embodiment of shells. None was more capable than the other, although he knew upbringing and personality would take a toll and raise or lower the possibilities for each great role. Among his children there might have been great knights and greater poets. Painters, musicians, smiths and scholars. They all could take on these mantles, at their own discretion, their hearts and experiences would lead them. And he knew that this one was but a mirror of his own. An artist too, of a different art. The composer’s child was a much better poet, which made him wonder what ballads they could have written together.

They were so much like him, for like himself, they rightfully lied and fiercely believed they were Hollow, as they were told to do. So skilled they were, they could make the world question itself before their wish, that was law. This one had a soul bright and pure enough to blind. They all had the potential for such, but this one already had progressed leagues into that route, born with it in hand. Such heart and soul would grow even faster in the envisioned environment. There was no other more suitable way to develop a light than to cradle them in light, and he knew that all he was preventing himself from doing, she would see through. All the love he kept himself from teaching, all the care, all the sadness, all the hurt and all the joy, she would introduce to them. If he could teach them to ward off that for as much as possible, they might have a fighting chance, even if it would stunt their own development which they had a right to. It pained him, but it was what he must do, and he would not fail their child. 

In their soul, they carved a failsafe like one carved a charm. He carved a place like a gallery, an arcade, of two floors and a ceiling of glass, with a little bandstand at its centre. A similar one had been recently built in the City of Tears, and it had been the only time they had ever seen their child’s eyes linger unto anything beyond duty and path. Their eyes travelled upwards, to the spotless glass dome above and the raindrops that twinkled outside, percussing a band that played for the visiting King and Knight. Their eyes set on the band, and held itself there until they had to leave. There was only so much emotion and thought the Pale King could hope to snuff out, and that one had seemed so pure, so innocent and beautiful to behold. The poet in their endless silence, for the first time regarding with their undivided attention such a mundane beauty. 

The Pale King was full of flaws. He had fragile emotions and a constitution too disproportional on his mind. He made decisions with a scalpel’s precision, gelid and impersonal, even when matters were anything but. The flaw that would ward him away and inevitably bury him was this heart of his, that never knew the words and wasn’t talented at silence, and as such, had distanced all those he cared for. His Lady, his Knights, his advisors. His child was the only one who might actively benefit from such a distance, even as it poisoned the monarch every passing hour. He loved, and he noticed, and the memory was powerful in his mind and heart because he believed it might be the only memory their Pure Vessel deliberately chose to hoard so far.

It was a memory that had no clear connection to him. He had a feeling that like his child would never know how much he loved them, if at all, they too would grow to hate him. He thought it proper and logical to assume so. So may that memory not be only somewhere that the Pale King thought comfortable for them, but one that had inspired something in the vessel, something that they wouldn’t hate for not necessarily it was a memory of him. The Pale King had a similar place in his own mind, a temple, a place of worship that he resorted to every time he sought for his tools, his instruments of music. A temple of Light and of Foretelling, a temple of logic and purpose. A temple where rituals would take place, and like the ultimate frontier, through it passed the things from dream, mind and soul unto the waking world. 

With time, a particularly talented vessel could learn to make such things. But this one would inherit it, should they ever falter entirely. If they ever walked free from the Temple of the Black Egg, then they already had done more than anyone should ever have to do. Already had paid their dues in the shape of a resilience the Pale King could only dream of having, and a patience he could only but bow at. He already thought his child perfect, but to know what it would face, and that they might have more than himself ever could dream of having… Flooded his heart with dread and pride, both. 

The spell was a shy thing that betrayed its power. All but faint seals that he drew upon a youth’s shell, hovering with a pale and blunt claw but not quite touching. Once done, it tore inwards. The vessel was a light creature, and as their body became limp, the Pale King needed not more than two hands on the rim of the shell to hold their body still before themselves. Into the emptiness of those hollowed eyes, gleamed the shy, faint light of a memory. The seed of a Light, that seemed to bounce over that blackened linen, before sinking entirely into the shade within. A memory, a doorway, to grow in secret and bloom when it was time. 

As the light of the seal faded as if it had never been there, he brought his hands to work. He supported a shell against his shoulder, feeling horns scraping against his own. His many arms were short, but needn't to be long to cradle the small body against his chest, and hold the unconscious vessel close. The Pure Vessel wouldn’t wake in a while, nor would remember having come into his workshop in the first place. The Pale King didn’t think he ever had this chance before, and wouldn’t have it again. 

Miracles were rare and could be as simple as the opportunity to just cradle his child and sit himself down on the dull and plain floor of his workshop. With only the lumaflies for witness, he could look properly upon delicate shell and small but thick horns. Mattered not that these eyes would never open, nor close, in their hollowness. Mattered not that they would never focus on his own stares, and that the jaw below was missing - a necessary disability that they hoped time and the seed of light would remedy - mattered not if they would grow to hate him, it was fair if they did. Mattered not if they were the child of the Root he loved and too of his archnemesis, one much greater and more primal than the feud he had bought with the Radiance, envious, foolish and dumb as he thought her to be. 

They were his child. The only one they had the chance to meet, even if so superficially. The one they loved, before they were even born. When his foretelling told him of this possibility, it showed him brave knights in the silks of princes, outliving it all. With a heart of void and the soul of a king, they were the promise of that everlasting Hallownest he had only but dreamt of. Lights, monarchs and creators like him, or forces of nature, resilient and cunning like the thing below. He loved them all, before they were even an idea for him to give to his dear Root. He loved them all, even if he would only meet this one, and never fully. 

He wouldn’t hold them again. He could not. If he did, would be only but the slightest, faintest remnant of his soul, lingering at this vessel’s mind should they welcome him there at the arcade of his being. A memory of light. Not a good memory, he supposed. For all the suffering he would cause, all the pain he would inflict with his distance, he could never be a fond memory. Thus, this was a singular moment, not to repeat itself. So he held on tight. As tight as he could without hurting or risking to wake the small, still rather malleable vessel. He held them tight enough to feel his body shake, his eyes go blind with the tears he held on. He hoped that his silence could speak the poetry he was so bad at making, and deliver what he felt so deeply in his heart.

He knew it would not. He wasn’t a poet of silences. He was a composer, a musician. Thus, in the memory he had crafted and put to rest at the vessel’s mind, was one in which he played to them the song he composed for them, a secret, one that already knew what awaited his beautiful child. A mournful piece, of a glorious and dreadful section, followed by a mostly mournful sequence, and a delicately sad ending. One to wrap up in the bittersweet manner only fragile hopes and powerful regrets could bear. A composition like what his foretelling told. One that must be sealed, to instill the Kingdom’s last stasis. He had named it Sealed Vessel, and would give it to them with the Wyrm's tools, so should they outlive it all, may that not be empty handed.

If they took on these tools or not, if they would ever get to see either thing, it was uncertain. How much of the foretelling played out, if the Hallownest of the next era would be one void of lights or under her domain, or if any other of his progeny would make it out, he would never know. He had done what he could, which was not much, but was all. He was left to hoping, praying, and wiping his own tears from his child’s pale shell. He would never know, and they would never know. It was not for ignorance that he cried, but that everything had to be in this manner, in the first place. 

_ A Wyrm’s last breath is but a prayer _

_ Eternally blown towards the nexus of time and fate _

_ White ferns and black reeds greet it with a waiver _

_ As if they had always know they were solution incarnate _

_ Midday and Midnight meet at a stalemate _

_ Both worthy of throne unclaimed, matching in merit _

_ As foretold, an era is reborn when they amalgamate _

_ Wyrmchildren were built not to be destroyed but to inherit _

Time remained an immeasurable thing in Hallownest, although it hadn’t always been the case.

Once, days were long and inconsistent, held at its first moment with a golden light that threatened to dawn atop Hallownest’s farthest northeast, the Kingdom’s very own crown. There it remained, as it communed with its followers, before it was gone without ever rising into a second height or even a midday. An eternal dawn while it lasted, brought by the summons and dreams of a people that were the first to wilt at the infection. The name of that light was Radiance, the soon Forgotten Goddess of Light, sovereign in the realm of dreams, and soon remembered as all of Hallownest dreamt of her once again. 

After her, came another light soon after. Almost entirely different, both in behaviour and essence. The new light didn’t threaten to spill on the lands below but rather from beneath it came, rising unto the Capital progressively until it travelled up every raindrop and its trail, every glasswork and every spiral, up to cast dots of light at the ceiling above, twinkling like jewelry encrusted on the done above. It was a light that was not felt in dreams, but rather in one’s waking mind. It was blinding in its heat, pushing into awareness bugs that knew naught but primal instincts. Sometimes, it was gentle as the morning mist it raised unto the City at the start of every new day, delicately woven in minimal constructs like lanterns. The name of that light was Æthelstan, the Pale King and the Last Wyrm, sovereign in Hallownest and in the minds of bugs. 

Without either, the passage of time was as good as guesswork. No more could the pale-faced clockworks of Monomon be spotted behind large convex windows. No more a passerby, shielded by an umbrella like most of the wandering residents of the Kingdom’s capital, could tilt the rain’s shield a little to the side, seek an angle to not be disrupted by the reflection of the lamp post nearby, and from the very streets and walkways know the exact time. To turn the clockworks to the windows used to be commonplace, both a manner to boast wealth as well provide what was yet pending; a clock tower for Hallownest. The passage of days, years, decades, it too was lost as the calendars stopped being made in the height of the infection, and the few notes that were taken began being registered in silk and papers, that quickly was lost to the humidity of the capital.

This was Hallownest’s stasis. With naught to measure the passage of time and the minds of bugs decaying, losing the grip on the pale essence that allowed them to think further than the next meal, they too were losing the track of time. They hardly even noticed, at first. Waking from a dreamless slumber always a little duller than they were the day before, very few actually could see what was becoming of them. They missed the lights, either one - in dream, at least, they saw what mattered. In golden essence, they held on lost lovers, missing parents, and mattered not then if they thought little, those dreams comforted, and the hive mind was but a small price to pay so to live in that dream forevermore. Those who missed the pale essence the most had lasted longer without it, but at the cost of no comfort, only the dread and fear of what the future held. Realism was a dreadful curse when only further darkness awaited beyond.

The oldest could only but wonder how long it had been since they last saw their King. How long since they had last seen the infected walk across paved streets, themselves but one of them, seeking nothing for the hive mind provided with all and provided with nothing. How long since the one in red first began walking these streets, weapon in hand as if to enforce what her words claimed with no waiver; gather unto order, whichever one. The physically strong should take on hunts, the weak take on the crafts. She, who they called Hornet, seemed to have been awake all this time they were asleep. She had the time to learn how to survive when civilisation fell and archivists were no longer needed and hunters were scarce. They hadn’t. They weren’t responding to her beckon with the usefulness and eagerness she expected.

Many were crippled by the infection. All were crippled by mourning and loss. It was difficult to gather anything, resources, tools, even oneself from their rotten bedding in the dark of their homes, lacking lamps, hearths and meals. Time melted forevermore, with no days and only an endless night that some hoped to sleep through entirely, or they tried to chase off by being awake for as long as they could, warding off sleep as if they feared her return in dream and their mind’s decay upon waking. Nights passed were up to the one counting - many if seeking golden essence, few if holding on desperately on pale one. Up to anyone’s guess how long since the one in red began being accompanied by one in dark grays and tainted horns, who never spoke a word but seemed like an apparition of the past to the older few, enough that they elicited silence wherever they went after her. It was never said what this one reminded some bugs of, but it seemed known when they shared glances. This one that they called Ghost.

Anyone’s guess how long that had been, but nonetheless, things had changed. The Crossroads were silent, only scarcely echoing the sound of a scurrying beast or the murmurs of the walking sentries. The sound of construction could be heard at the City’s Storerooms nearly at all times. Carts were being turned into wagons, chests were being torn open, then fixed. Shabby work for the Guild of Menderbugs was elusive and operated for as long as it did only because it never answered the messages sent by common bug, only scarcely from royalty. So progress was slow, when crafting was left to very few willing cooks and seamstresses and aristocrats, many crippled by the result of the infection.

The Kingdom’s Edge, a strange neighbour of the City of Tears, had remained the same. The Colosseum atop it remained buzzing with life. The sounds of its battles echoed on the mountainside, travelling oddly up and down these caverns when carried by the wind that either seemed lost, checking every nook and cranny as it blew by, or seemed to know exactly what it was looking for and the path it was crossing. It carried the buzzing of bees and the sweet smell of their honey, it carried the laughter and uproar of the Colosseum above, and it carried the white moult that covered most of this mountainside. The currents of the wind were made visible and distinguishable by that moult it carried, drawing swirls and whirlwinds where they crossed.

At the mountain’s deepest and most elusive recesses, the wind carried off the spores of strange plants, not quite common in most of Hallownest. Over dunes of moult, difficult to transverse, bloomed plants as pale as the dune it sprung from. Its stems arched from the ground and bloomed in a blade-like shape, with countless little lacy leaves of the most delicate nature. It shimmered like mist when the wind caressed it, and it grew fast as if it was eager to soon cover a dune whole, then another, then perhaps all of Hallownest in its wake. It fluttered gracefully when the wind caressed it, from a distance, looking like furs of a great, half-buried beast.

The white ferns weren’t alone, nay. In between the coarse and full blanket of them, stood tall reeds only marginally thinner than grids and lamp posts, of a full black colour that stood out like the caverns’ ceiling stood out to the blanket of whiteness below. At the tip of the reeds, a bushy, black top of the thinnest and most velvety leaves created something akin to a plume and a spearhead, both. It was not less graceful than the ferns that pooled around it, both waving at the passerby wind as if they were all old acquaintances ready to greet each other with mirth every time they met. 

The new, alien, yet strangely familiar plant life seemed to grow towards the direction of a most odd archway, despite the manner the wind seemed to insist on blowing constantly and rather impetuously through its circular passage, pushing the plants back and away from it. The plants cascaded down the dune and despite the wind blowing them back, it was as if their spores were being carried to the opposite direction in sheer stubbornness. They paved the way for the wind as if at their height, the wind blew back, and seemed to lure them to breach the archway and be unleashed on the Kingdom and wastelands beyond. 

Maybe they would. Maybe they would not. Plant life was but one of the strangest kinds of living beings, second only perhaps to Wyrms and the creatures of pale shell that the Abyss spat out. Weren’t they the same, except inverted, like the manner in which the ferns and reeds were growing? The Pale Wyrm who went from massive creature to King then to memory of light, who’s to say his children weren’t making the inverted path? From memory of shade and shell, to royalty, and perhaps one day into great Wyrms as well. It would only be known when another breached this world, massive and horned and purposeful, rising from egg or moult. That time wasn’t upon any just yet.

But it was time for something. Not because enough hours had passed, not because the night was nearing and they feared its apex, not because a light threatened its dawn above and called through pale souls and inky blood, nay. It was time for something, because it was  _ their _ time. The dawn of an era was easy to pinpoint when looking back, but for no common bug was it easy to see when it was time to birth it, bring it anew. But it was such a time. The sands at the top of the hourglass had finally stopped falling, not a single speck clinging to the glass. It was time for it to turn, and the night below would be sovereign. Another era to come, another cycle to unfurl itself, to erase all that was and begin anew. Eventually have that silence of darkness breached by another shrieking light, as was the natural order of things.

But that hourglass didn’t turn. It was their time to turn it, weight they never knew they carried, but they would not. The night had a right to come and claim its turn, but it needn't do so by scorching history in its wake and leaving no room for anything else but itself. Light had no need for it either. There had never been need of it, it was but a feud older than time itself, one feud that pure beings could not possibly escape. The ceiling would always oppose the floor, the rain would always pour downwards, and light and darkness would always oppose one another. But this was no pure being, if that had never been clear before, it was unquestionable now. And this was not a feud they inherited, any of them, and they needn't make it so. 

Massive shell raised slowly, unhurried, as if savouring its wake one angle at a time, stretching an arm high above its head. With a shell whiter than the ferns that blanketed the dunes above and around them, its gentle glow made the delicate leaves shimmer and reflect delicately the light it poured from the carved and etched surface. Like a charm, twin horns sported discreet ridges, curves and angles, like some intricate sculpture once adorning a palace painted in grayscale. Within the architectural and massive arcs, two barbs pointed inwards, as they had always done before. Sculptured masterfully to reflect the soul it harboured, a King’s Soul, endless in the essence it produced and poured gently in specks like mist and molt, cascading slowly or blinking upwards, in and out of existence. For a Dreamer's eyes, such glow had a symbol, the pattern of a net, not unlike a flower, impossibly stark even against the white field underneath.

Fingers like black reeds pulled the bladed white stems that had tangled themselves between massive horns. The light simmered and reflected upon almost everything, but definitely not on the surface of black carapace and the spearhead plumes of the lithe reeds. They looked at their palm, and saw nothing but unreflective, black carapace. At the back of their hand, however, the sturdier outer platting of every finger was as white as the fern caught between them. Even that surface was discretely etched - designs that reminded them of seals, of Palacian architectures, and the half of a charm a King used to keep with himself at all times. The token that had dented his story, his heart, was also a claim to another’s. The other half, the Lady pale and fair kept. Two halves of a sacred union. Its rupture, the mark of its death.

Similar markings now resided everywhere where carapace had changed. As if they had only but moulted and once reforming, the sturdier parts of their body had taken on the whitish landscape they were buried in, and let it aid them on reforming themselves. Molten void that had incorporated the very grave they were put in, it now was layered white wherever their carapace was the thickest. It was ornate, too, in patterns that seemed to tell a story in no known language, but like a painting of no clear image or the craft of architects, it transmitted much in its silence.

Like a full armour set, where plating was long and solid, it had been coated white to glow steadily, contrasted by the neighbouring black plating that did not reflect that glow, but did not rival it either. No feud in the two opposites that composed them. Their fingers raised from their tomb of moult and fern to meet the others at their etched breastplate. Two symmetric hands, two arms. The lines that decorated their breastplate framed a centerpiece, a marking raised faintly, difficult to spot if one didn't have a sight capable of seeing through varying glows. Like it resided once above their father's heart, now over their own set the King's Brand, carved in brilliant craftsmanship as all of them were. 

Carefully, they brought themselves to stand. The wind that blew through the archway beyond, of maw and horns and as tall as they were, now took on their body in a full embrace. It wrapped itself around them with the weight of a mantle, weighing down gently on carapace black and white, for the first time confirming what had once only been an impression, a voiceless wonder. The tone below, distant and far away in the sound of the wind rustling against them, now was a secret handed to them. They knew the voice that it carried, the prayers that wind eternalised, of one that had abandoned Hallownest and yet, had not.

For when they folded their arms, fingers holding on where once stood nailed pauldrons, in the shelter of the wind’s and their own embrace, it was a memory of him that they felt. Safeguarded within their mind. Like her, who had lived on in the hearts of those who remembered her and dreamt of her, he carried on within themselves, always a fond memory that circumstance had turned bitter. They recalled their dream and understood it for what it was - perhaps a dream, perhaps the dead’s manifestation, either way, it was no construct of delusion. It was the confirmation that they sought, not robbed from them, nor hidden for them to find. They would always know, at the right time.

And it was a strange emotion, one they never imagined existed, to just hold on themselves, shut their sight, and bask in a purest mercy for themselves that they had never thought they could have, or needed. To stand again, but for once, freed of seal and chain of duties unfulfilled. They had fulfilled one, the most important of all. They had done their part, and had lived. It was what their father meant, was it not? In that strange dream and song shared, when he finally turned those eyes to him. Few words, as if he had needed to write them centuries ago and knew not what he should begin apologising for. But alas, there was no apologies that could fix the path or the manner events had played out. None of them were seeking apologies. They could have done with tender words, but understood the absence of them. Their father was, after all, a very distant creature.

But this was what they all paid a price for, somehow, this was all that he intended. That they walked off that Temple at some point, and dreamt of him. For this was what they always had been, always would become in a way or another, and all that they were meant to be. Had they died sooner, or died later. Had they laid to moult once more, or had meditated to preserve the memories and mind that light gifted. Mattered not. This was but a place where they were always meant to be, at their own time and at their own pace. At their death, and the life after it. And the wind greeted them with what to their hearing and their hearing alone, were the whispers in a familiar voice and yet a foreign language, one that they could only hear the intonation but not the meaning. The wind had always led bugs to their fate and liberation, it was said. From anywhere in the wastelands, one could follow the wind into Hallownest. It celebrated them now, as it mustn’t have done in such a long while. One had found their way to where they exactly should be.

With no duties to fulfill and all of their promises broken, the entirety of the world was up for themselves to take on flight. Flight indeed, for when they stretched their limbs fully, locking black and white legs on the field below, and their arms as high up as they could reach, they could feel their jaw opening and letting out a breath, somehow. When the plating on their back aligned and stretched, it pulled at the sinew on their back and like the strings behind a great theatre’s stage, it unfurled wings that brushed against their calves when they moved. Like the tears of the Capital beyond and all of its breathtaking glassworks, light too travelled down these wings, lighting up their iridescent nature like the surface of still water, reflecting as much light as its source.

These limbs and themselves were still strangers, as they answered to commands and the pulls of muscle entirely different from anything else of their body. But alas, they were a quick learner, and any route out of the maze that was this mountainside would be a route long enough for them to practice how to walk with their head up once again, no more painfully bent as they used to, wielding a great nail that served only as support and hardly could be anything else. Memory was a powerful thing, they supposed, for their legs moved with uncanny grace, as if they had never truly abandoned the orderliness a Pure Vessel crossed well-lit halls at a Palace as white as their King’s soul. But it was with a new nimbleness too that they permitted themselves more movement that they once did. They dared to slide down dunes when they could, instead of marching every step down as if bound by the weight of armour, by the wariness of ceilings too low and pretences of hollowness with stakes too high. 

That had been left behind. If they were ever still and stiff again, it would be a reflection of their own heart and mind, and nothing else. If they grieved, it would be a new tale to mourn. Not their own, for the curtains had been pulled and the stage had been unlit for a while now. There wasn’t another tragedy to play. By them, or by any other. For beyond this mountainside, Hallownest awaited and if they sought deep enough, they could feel it beyond, living still. A plethora of minds and souls, roaming on the distant like lumaflies in a maze. Their glow answered their own, if only they focused on it for a moment longer, like the wind that gave directions, should only they hear. That world beyond, in whatever state it was, was theirs to inherit. For his children to inherit, all and any, them included. And in that venture, there was not only room but a need for a light.

Hallow was such a light. Who’s to say fate was a careless, daft thing, that did not weave things in near coincidental yet very intentional manner?

They were a light. Their father's light had died in them, feeding their own that was so alike in its familiarity as if it was one of the same, and as if it had always been there, not lodged in shell but hoarded within mind, soul and shade. Hidden so deeply that even the most enraged Goddess hadn't found it to tamper with. It was a secret she had no keys to, not even themselves had, and perhaps with time they would have worn down the walls that concealed it. Perhaps not. It felt as if it had always been there, like a plot of land that had only needed the right elements to spark life unto the spores already embedded in the terrain. Only needed a single first rain to give its sign. It was there, behind grave wounds that had twisted their body enough to end a life as resilient as theirs. It was there, behind cruel fears and devastating uncertainties they only but recently had come to surpass. It did not erase their ache. The end of the tragedy tired an actor, and did not wipe the tears off their shell.

But it was a comfort. An end, terminal and certain, to a lifetime of tragedy they were so very tired of bearing. It was the blessing of one long gone, that seemed to wish them to move on, too. It was the closing of a wound still leagues from healing entirely, if it ever would, but no longer it bled. And once it no longer bleed, they could see what the taint had been hiding. It hid potential. Hid a soul so massive, grown by two lights, that now finally seemed to respond to their beckon, all but there for them to wield. All that they had been and much, much more. The incessant bleeding had held a last moult, that for once did not add to their height but expanded holy shell over the main plates of their body, not unlike an armour, glowing in all of their lithe and jutting edges and gentle curves, sporting designs of the product of a most regal and melancholic time.

Within their soul, the map of all others in this mountainside and beyond. They could not begin to sort them out. Within the empty and hollow eye sockets of their shell, two specks of light moved in synchrony like the eyes of beasts, focusing their sight and offering new angles for them to peer unto, unlike the spatial but static sight they once possessed. From minds great to small, they knew not which one to focus at first, nor if they should. But their seeking hadn't passed unnoticed, for soon words came to their head in an unfamiliar voice, soft but massive, and not at all far.  _ "Methinks it is most unsettling to have their thoughts pried into. Rather invasive. Even if an honour too, by having such done by a Wyrm." _

They nearly lost their step at this disruption. The wind with its secretive murmur that seemed to wish to lead them out of this cavernous mountainside went silent, as if it too was surprised. Past the archway of the Wyrm's own crowned maw, they did feel like they could do with some guidance through this vertical maze, by no means familiar nor entirely safe to transverse. There was life in these mountains, borderlander to the Kingdom within and not exactly bidding by its laws, if anywhere in Hallownest still was. They were not powerless, but they were unarmed. The strength they once used to wield a spell was now amplified so massively they wondered if it would even deliver its intended purpose, or if it would burst under its channeling like tubullation too frail for a water pressure too great. 

When they sought for these minds, to map and find them wherein they were, it was with no intention besides to avoid them. As the wind lured them through a path that they followed dexterously, at times trading a leap for an experimental flight of nearly ungraceful landing, they hadn't expected one of these minds to answer them back, and in such a mildly displeased intonation that was only possible in these shared minds. They felt embarrassed, of course. Awed, after a moment. There used to be very few bugs who used to be able to pinpoint their father's delving, the Dreamers such bugs, the Seers and rare warriors from the Moth Tribe another particularly sensitive kin to such dabbling. That one could do so now, and one so close and great and  _ old _ too, it was a disruption indeed. They caught themselves delving even further, like a child who could not be kept from staring despite being told not to, and instead of keeping on the error, they only but kept the connection shallow so they could remain feeling their location, and pass on their own thoughts in somber tone.  _ "Forgive me, I…" _

_ "Confused, Wyrm? Must be. No easy feat, to be reborn."  _ The other being spoke, and Hallow raised their head to peer through the stone ceiling the light of a twinkling soul above. Their disruption was far above, but away from the cluster of battle-bound souls that composed the Colosseum of Fools. Surprised them not to find out it still stood - it was told that it existed in some rudimentary manner before Hallownest and thrived violently with the rejects and outcasts of the Kingdom once founded. If something ought to outlast a Kingdom, it was that Colosseum. In flavour, it too remained the same. The thoughts that just faintly surfaced were the same that they could have read from passerby conversations and tales of that convention. A place of grit and glory, of the end of a hard journey met with something impossibly harder still. The destination of the bravest and most foolish, to think there was a difference between either term was foolish in itself. They were one and the same. 

The one that spoke to them was not one of those warriors, nay. What they had felt for the moment they had delved further was a very old soul, one hardly concerned with battle and more interested in avoiding the bustling lives below entirely, forsaking them for long rests. A soul that enjoyed conversation and had seen much when compared to common bug, yet little for a lifespan so great. It spoke with gentleness and some polite regard towards them, but also, not too excited about being awake. Their words revolved in the former Hollow Knight's mind for a while too long. It called them Wyrm, and was it incorrect to do so? They couldn't say. In another time, to lay claim to such a title, even if one supposedly possessed such a heritage, was gravely frowned upon. Charlatans and traitors were not welcome in Hallownest, a land that so proudly held together by order and honesty and honour - pillars now almost entirely lost to time.  _ "...It is always pleasant to see fantastic feats and secret hopes come true. Seek me above, and let us talk." _

Hallow hadn't waited for the invitation, nor had the intention of taking it up now. They already had set themselves to the task of making their way up through this maze-like mountainside, crossing quickly the tall ledges and cliffs with even larger leaps of their legs, reaching even further when aided by all six wings that pushed through the accompanying wind and made the vertical climb a speedy affair. Bought them the time that they lost when the caverns narrowed and they found themselves bending down nearly entirely to fit through. Life peeked at them through crevices and holes and quickly hid from sight. Beasts both big and small who had woken from such a forceful dream surely were now wary of anything that glowed. They had never taken on the blessing of light, only it's most dreadful influence in the shape of mutation and a hivemind. They could not blame them for hiding as they approached. 

_ "Thank you, but I may not. I must find my siblings."  _ They answered, hopeful to don't sound harsh. But it did wound their heart in the slightest both to think themselves short of impolite, and to see common beast press themselves against the edges of stone and shallow burrows so to evade them as they passed. By no means this was supposed to be another light's era, nay. The survivors of the last bright reign had their memories too fresh of what one so bright could do in her wrath. Was that what they would find beyond? They were so deeply enamoured still with the goodness a light could give that they hadn't considered that they might be seen as an enemy and a danger. Was this what their father had faced when he first walked these lands? A terrain of wilderness, wary of him, and by the way many things played out, they had been wise to be so careful. It was a forlorn thought, nearly enough to halt them in their journey. Would they too precede a terrible era? They were very similar to their father, aye, but not the same. If they found doors closed upon their knock, and hearts wary of their grace, if they ought to fight for a place in that Kingdom they inherited, they knew not if they would.

No longer they were held on by title, promise or role. The world stretched before them like the tapestry of fate, all but paving the way to whatever route they chose to take. It was a dizzying freedom, one they knew not how to traverse. They knew not the direction in which they wished to take their first steps, besides one that lingered in their heart so strongly, and the reason they woke in the first place. They pained, they ached, and they had put an end to the play they had been protagonists of, the soloist of a composer's great piece. They were exhausted, in a manner that a long slumber would not remedy, but many easy days, sewn back to back, perhaps would. But another piece stood in the horizon, not yet orchestrated, but with the sheet intended to them already in their monochromatic grasp. Their siblings still had much of life before themselves, and they sought to inherit Hallownest’s fate, spearhead its care. They would light up their path, even if the kingdom denied a light. It was not for common bug that they woke. It was not for them that they picked up instruments, some of them brand new, familiar but so far untouched. It was not for their father either, although his blessing relieved them of many weights.

It was for their siblings that they climbed up, but often their head turned to the mountainside from where polished stone and pillars jutted out, like a fossil transpiring through the crystalised coffin it had been buried in. The Kingdom’s Edge stretched like a massive wall, many crevices on either and all sides channeling the winds in and out, and far away they could feel the gentle glow of minuscule souls, see the careful wander of bugs, who took on the air once more and quickly crossed from one mountain hill unto another. They would have liked to see from up closer - see what sentience was this that acknowledged and evaded them, see if it was conscious fear or instinct that made them wary.

They would see to it, they thought. At another time. For now, they focused on the caverns they stood on, on the last standing crevice before a massive ravine. As they approached it, the belflies that had taken residence on its ceiling whistled in warning, before scurrying off into the vast canyon beyond, where the wind carried in many torrents cascading moult and meeting whirlwinds. Bodies littered every pillar and protruding stone that toothed this great gap as if it was the spread mouth of some deceased beast. They were armoured, they noticed, as another body descended the great fall and avoided most platforms until it reached below, bothering a massive boofly that was both too docile and too daft to notice it until it hit the ground nearby. Only then did it raise its head, and met the spark of light far, far above. Clumsily and lethargic, it began making its way to shade, seeking shelter from their sight.  _ "Ohrm. I see. I am Bardoon. You are related to the tiny one, are you not?” _

Hallow let their wings fold once more along their back, their barbed feet set on rough stone serving as good grounding for them to stand at the cavern’s edge, and with a hand on a nearby root, whitish and strange, they let themselves to bend over and gaze upon the land below. Such a massive height, with naught to keep them from that fall besides a hand on megre root that most likely couldn’t hold on their weight. They wondered if it was taller than the Watcher’s Spire. They had never been at the Spire’s peak, but had always thought it an interesting place. Beholder of a city and the last to light up from the ascending light, when the glassworks atop it were fully lit, it was the signal of noon and Hallownest’s busiest hour. The well-lit city made the drops still hanging in the ceiling above twinkle like many jewels, lighting up and fading on the distance. A wondrous city awaited beyond this chasm, with heights just as massive as this.

Perhaps it was an eternity within dreams of ever-changing landscape, bottomless skies and never-ending clouds that made them unafraid of such heights. Wary, yes, for they were not a fool and knew not just yet how to operate those wings of theirs. They feared no fall - their body could only accelerate so much, and if their form was anything like it had once been, as long as they fell on their two feet, their carapace could distribute their weight reasonably well. The fall frightened them not, but oh, did the edge lure them, as the wind swirled from below, carrying the scent of hive and sweetness and life, and made them spread wings they had only just closed. The height lured, the city beyond awaited, and they held on good sense only.  _ “Many compared to me are tiny. But the one you mention must indeed be my kin. They are… Particularly implacable, unassuming yet difficult to mistake.” _

Sibling which must too await somewhere past those walls. Their bond by voidheart was strange, and by no means their field of expertise. They knew not how it worked, nor if it had a frontier with the realm of soul and mind themselves so easily traversed in now. It was not easy, despite them having heard how it operated by their father’s own words, when he sat with Dreamer and explained his skills in hopes that her, intelligent and ever quizzical Teacher, could theorise with him about the Radiance’s own reach. They never got close to the manner in which she communed with the dreams of others, no. This vast spatial awareness of souls and minds were naught in comparison to the dreams she caught from the rivers of slumber in nets shaped like blooms. They knew both, from watching. And knowing made it no easier to find in a crowd the one they sought. So many, and may their sister and sibling be beings of souls and minds greater than most, it did not make them much easier to find.

But they were somewhere in there. Perhaps very close, perhaps very far. They feared sending word through the attunement of their blackened hearts and accidentally send it through every other mind from here to Deepnest. The minds of bugs were fragile things to tamper - madness seemed to hide in corners, waiting for the most intelligent bug to fall prey to it. It filled hearts with both love and possession, in the most terrible of entanglements. Fear and selfishness walked hand in hand. Light had always been something to fear, or deeply adore. An in-between was always difficult to achieve and observe. And if the beasts of the Kingdom’s Edge were anything to go by, they would find a tendency towards one end of this spectrum more than another in the world beyond. But not all, they thought. There was one being so far who was more curious than rejecting, and more polite than displeased.  _ “It won, did it not? You too share that strong union in a single being. But very different from each other, yes. Evolved from the Wyrm long gone.” _

The more that the being spoke, the more Hallow wondered if they could not make a detour to meet such a creature. Bardoon seemed to still mistake them for a Wyrm, and they still wondered if it was a mistake, or merely a wisdom much greater than their own. Sometimes those unaware of all details and more distant to the events unfolding could see more than themselves, entangled with them as they were. They tended to believe the latter, for there was no reason nor sense they could give to the events that had unfolded if they were not, in some manner, more Wyrm than simply the inherited title of Wyrmchild. How else could they justify their own resistance to death, at every brink of it that they neared, an old trait being shed behind them so they could wield something more. At every loss, a gain, leading to something that could not be described as nothing less than a rebirth. They felt the pull towards the civilisation beyond, they felt at their disposal their soul and the light that they now were, and they knew that it was not coincidence that had tailored them like this, but rather intention.

Hadn’t their sibling achieved something similar, in their own manner? In a tomb of Void, the carapace of their chest held the etchings of what they called a Voidheart, to represent a blackened heart so alike all of theirs but unique in the manner it spun all others unto its rhythm. A death themselves had gone through too, in their own manner. In their visit, they shed resentment, a rejection, so they could leave that Abyss lighter. In their dreams, they had to shed the pursuit for another light, so they could wake and see the path ahead. A progressive dismantling, so here they could come apart and be brought together as one most suitable for their chosen purpose. Not bestowed, nor promised. Merely a will, a focus, of their own choosing. If that wasn’t what composed a Wyrm, then they knew not what was such a creature.

_ “You are quiet, Wyrm. Like the tiny one.” _ The caterpillar’s remark was gentle, but it sounded just enough of a complaint to make Hallow snap from their stillness and straighten their back, taking a step back from the stone edge. They were quiet indeed, they supposed. If not particularly inquired, they might as well pass through this world unquestioning, unprompted, eerily silent. For no vacancy of thought or heart, nor a lacking of understanding or knowledge on how to communicate, quite the contrary. The awareness kept them from the bliss of ignorance, and made them think too much on the simplest things. Being born mute, as all vessels were, was a disability that robbed them of the joy of talking with little thought or heart employed. Robbed them of carelessness and spontaneity. Yet, they couldn’t imagine themselves any different - this disability all but enabling a tendency to introspection. The ability to insert thought and voice did not at all soften the barriers themselves had put up. There was a degree of comfort in their silence towards most. And being prodded to voice their thoughts did not aid them in selecting their words. 

_ “They are more talkative than I am. What they lack is a voice.” _ Not having a voice to cry suffering was but the last part of their curse, so very necessary to isolate them from all other kin. If they could not answer, they would not think of the words they chose. If they could not ask, they would not wonder what lay before them. If they would not wail their wounds and the loneliness at their hearts and the longing for warmth, then any feeling in them wouldn’t be enabled before it was too late. Hallow never gave it much thought, the voice that they had been robbed had never been missed too much. Again, they were literate. They had never written down the words they knew and the thoughts in their head because they had never willed themselves to.

But it was indeed proven that the ability to do so was enough to encourage conversation. Here they were, prone to long silences yet entertaining a stranger with conversation whenever cornered. They were uncomfortable, but not unwilling. This last curse was the only that had not been broken - they had minds to think, hearts to feel, wills to break. The Radiance made sure that in her realm, they had a voice to reverb through all of her domain, so she never missed a trembling sigh of theirs or a wail of their despair. So that same realm wasn’t vacant of noises besides her own. She enjoyed hearing them take the laboured breaths they took when distress caught on their throat, see a sob brew into a cry to rival her own, grown under her ministrations. A first breath not unlike the one they took when they stood not long ago at their tomb.

They raised a black and white hand to below their shell, to brush their fingers at a jaw-less throat and sequentially, to the muteness it signalled. But their fingers found not the seamless junction of void and shell, not anymore. Instead, a mouthpiece held, like a missing part, small and not particularly noteworthy, but it shielded that junction that once had been disabled and makeshift. It held on tight, pulled by the same sinew that held their shell high, but as if acknowledging it was enough, they tentatively opened it, and felt the air sit upon twin tongues. The breath they tentatively pulled in sounded like gentle wind, and the forceful exhale that followed, it vibrated with the hesitation they felt. It rumbled deeply, a gravely sound that seemed to find echo in the very wind and stone, and they ceased it immediately after, shutting their mouth once again.

_ “I have heard that. Does change surprise you? It should not. Is that not your secret, to at every loss and tragedy die and be born again? Ohrm. It is a good thing, methinks. The world is bigger with your kind in it.”  _ They spoke, and Hallow only but barely heard them through their own thoughts. For a moment, nothing existed besides what they could not see, but so clearly felt. The wind that came from below the ravine pressed against their shell from below and if they parted their jaw, they could feel it caressing the blackened roof of their mouth. They could feel the wind lukewarm when compared to the breath they let go, a sigh far more quiet than any they ever let. There was a hint of a voice concealed under the sound, one that they only but remotely felt the flavour of and yet were terrified of wasting it, as if it was a precious thing they would lose as soon as they acknowledged it.

Upon death and rebirth, they had been given all things they knew not they needed. They could have done without a light, without the integrity of their body and without a voice. They could have gone with only their will and desire to aid their siblings, surely they could have followed them to a degree. They never asked for any of these tools. But alas, tools they were. To accept, learn, and wield. And against the trembling of their breastplace, they felt all but a quiet resonance, discrete but rumbling deep. Like a gentle press of an ivory key of the lowest octaves of a grand piano, or one of the most delicate yet grave strings of their mother’s grand harp. Somber and quiet, but not any less lyrical. Just too low to notice if one was not seeking it. Unlike themselves, a voice that might as well not be noticeable in a crowd if they did not bother raising their tone. Just like they had always sounded at their siblings’ encore and voidhearted bond. 

_ “May you find a dreamless slumber, Bardoon. It is my sibling’s gift to you. Mine will be to leave your mind unperturbed.” _ They said, turning their head upwards when their attention was robbed by yet another falling body that crossed their sight quickly, but didn’t reach the gap’s bottom. It rebounded against a platform and there it stayed. Yet another fool from a Colosseum that never ceased its activities. More than ever they wanted to make it to their siblings’ side, coil their much greater body behind the meagre shells, nail and needle, and perhaps unhurriedly unwrap this gift much too personal under their vigilance and cover.

_ “I thank you for it, Wyrm. Farewell.”  _ Bardoon bid their farewell, but they could not answer in turn, their attention still at the tip of their fingers and at the depths of their chest. A voice. One they knew not what they would begin doing with. Their eyes now had even more of a hurry to find on the mountain wall opposite to the one they stood an entrance to the Capital beyond. They knew of a few, but time might have sealed them while torn up others in places far more difficult to find. To search in this mountainside could take forever, the caverns were too many, as many dug by a great Wyrm’s body as well dug by the erosion of time and the bugs that had made this place their home. But as they sought, their eyes went up when the wind enveloped their wings, spreading them like a cloak when it embraced them. From above, it brought the uproar of the Colosseum, who must have ended yet another trial and seemed to nearly vibrate the voice underscored on the wind with their commemoration. 

If there was a path that had not been sealed in all this time, must be the one that never stopped being used. The climb upwards was, by all that they could see, very unforgiving. Wider near the top, and with narrower platforms to climb, steeper walls everywhere one looked, with less crevices for the wind to run through and for beasts to hide. But a straight line to fly. They did not feel particularly skilled with their wings, most certainly not to do subtle and well measured turns, even less to hover still. With this skill yet undeveloped, they felt like a beast wielding a club, and like one, all they had was blunt strength.

The noise of their wings could be a subtle, gentle, nearly twinkling thing. Softly patterned like the taps of fingers over railing, it was a familiar sound. Their father’s wings were rarely used, but he often moved them to keep them from growing stiff or gathering moisture. They had never heard their father’s wings at the fullest of their strength, but they wondered if they sounded anything like their own when they bent their legs below them, arched wings high, and snapped in synchrony both their body upwards and iridescent pairs downwards. The noise was not unlike the devious machinations their father developed at his workshop, made to guard and cut through whatever opposed his diminutive body. The fast buzzing was a drilling, incessant sound, that matched in strength and violence in which they crossed the torrents of wind that towered in the ravine.

A straight line offered no obstacle. The wind was but a shriek at their hearing, rustling through too fast and too loud for them to hear anything else between it and the unrestricted strength of beating wings. Their intended target, the tallest opening of the opposite mountainside, neared almost too quickly for them to change the direction of their hasty flight. Their adjustment of angle lacked their innate grace, but kept them from hitting any of the cavern’s uneven, edged walls, and disregarded a need for a stop. They left the torches and lights of the Colosseum behind, as well its muffled, unaware uproar that saw not them pass near the jaws of a long-dead ancient that served as their domed battlegrounds.

They were but a beam of light, of large, etched horns turned backwards, the opposite end but a snout to spearhead the cutting of wind, air pierced by a seamless and well-shut jaw. Their dotted pupils at the lower rim of their eye sockets watched the route ahead narrow into a blissfully straight and clear passage, through uneven walkways both makeshift and carelessly carved, both its natural and conscious influence damaged by time. They passed too fast for the belflies to react in time, leaving behind them a crazed cacophony of their alarmed whistling, soon lost as well to the Kingdom’s Edge and the ever-present speckles of moult that still trailed behind them, holding on a little bit of light even once parted from the surface of their body and littering the path behind themselves.

If this was the mirth their sibling felt whenever they wielded that strange power they owed, not unlike these equally strange crystals once so valued from the mines below Hallownest’s Crown, then they could understand why the Ghost of Hallownest used it so often. It was an uncomplex pleasure, with no exact explanation that they could easily grasp. A freedom unmatched, with a power and in their case a skill that due to their nature could not tire, the world and its distances all but seemed like walls of wind - ever present, troublesome for some too small to pierce it, but for them, all but veils they could cut through. A machine, fed with beings charged, and ready to operate forevermore. The world at a moment away, the City of Tears nearing as these distant souls grew larger in their spatial awareness, a layer below the sight physical eyes bore. 

The caverns too were left behind, much faster than they thought they would. They only noticed it gone as the fierce buzzing of their wings stopped echoing so loudly out of a sudden, and their light no longer coated the walls close around them. Almost as soon as the narrow passageway gave way to a chasm beyond, so did a wall quickly approach at their front, an end for the straight line they had been searing through these caverns. Immediately they halted their wings, spreading them but by no means doing much for the fall that followed. A diagonal angle turned their collision into a quickly accelerating fall, aimed to hit at some point glass panels, passing them by so quickly that they did not pay much mind to the sight beyond, except to the awareness that there was a beyond, an open space. 

Before their shell could make a most ungraceful rebound against such panels, they sought for a spell so natural to them that it was nearly instinctual. From within, to beyond. From within the sheltered cocoon of blurred, aged stained glass to suddenly the sight of the world beyond mountainside, the unclear visage they had before was replaced by the unfiltered beauty of the city’s skyline, showered eternally in a downpour that fell slower than themselves did. The elongated freefall was long enough that they could find the timing to start their wings once more, all pairs beating progressively faster until they arrived at the floor at a most delicate and soundless drop.

If the breath they had in their chest was due to the tension of a near-crash or due to the entirely awe-striking joy of seeing the City of Tears standing still, they knew not, but they let it part from their jaws nonetheless. Many efforts had been made to preserve Hallownest, and they had thought all of them failed like the Crossroads beyond and the Queen’s Gardens swallowed by plant life. But apparently, not all had been lost to decay. Either the city had been spared more efforts than anywhere else, or it was only inherently resistant, a creation so beautiful that even time had been gentle to take the Capital unto its grasp.

Lurien’s creation was a marvel of architecture that had aged visibly, but was no less beautiful for the wear. The beautiful sculptures that channeled the water from rooftops had been stained by the ever-constant flow of water through their carved maws, but the many hues of gray only added to the depth of somber colours in this great painting that had become the Capital. The windows had dulled, no longer polished, but their outwards being eternally washed still reflected faintly the rare lights. The streets of the East District were lit by few and rare in between lanterns still lit, streets deserted like they rarely had ever been. The cobblestone that lined these paths, once so well measured and even, now seemed like the rain had smoothed them, making them a bit more slippery for one in a hurry.

They had never seen the city so strangely quiet. But by no means did it seem deceased, nor did they feel in that spatial awareness of theirs devoid of life. At the height of the night, the water that poured over their black carapace felt most neutral, even lukewarm as it slid between the pale plating of their shoulders, but against any pale surface, the sprinkling of these waters were most certainly cold. It did not bother them, no. They felt its coldness as if it was a marking of time itself, so long since these waters had been lit by beloved King and Creator, so long since mist had raised from the many canals and aqueducts that shared long lines with walkways, crossing in delicately arched bridged and many boats of all designs docked at the sides, as if only but waiting for another day to come so they could travel through this district once more.

Very few windows were lit from their insides. One of them was yet another building that seemed to be too stubborn to permit itself to fade. As if all things that had been too intensely loved, too thoroughly tended to, they all came to challenge the effects of time. This city and the Pleasure House were such places. Beyond the many wide streets, adorned with lampposts and sheltered flowerpots with no surviving plant life, beyond the tall buildings and water tunnels below, beyond the alleyways that intersected roads great and fine with shy but effective smaller ones, beyond it all stood the Watcher’s Spire.

Vacant of the City’s Mayor and Founder, it was no less of a beauty, the tallest of all buildings of Hallownest, a testament to what meant to be enlightened. For them, they always thought Monomon genial albeit strange in her own manner, and Herrah sure was a brave and indomitable Queen, thoroughly respected, but it was in Lurien that the former Pure Vessel found themselves most intrigued by. For he too had been a bug of silences, of a quiet laugh and a very unassuming size. Possessing a singular eye, a malformation, Lurien was weak for his kin, and by his own words and general judgement, unpleasant to look at. His cloak covered him whole, and he was never seen without his mask.

But bugs always had more to offer than just strength of nail and resilience against odds. Lurien, owner of a singular eye, had received upon birth a mind that he fed and grew like no other. Of gentle behaviour, he was tender with all bugs that he crossed paths with, measuring not effort be them foreigners or high born. His spire, aimed to center the City’s functioning resources, the assembly of guards and great balls, stood in the frontier of the most crowded West District and the most enriched East District. He created, loved, and nurtured. He had taken on a humble lover, his own butler, a friend of a long date. Butler who had not taken the title of the Watcher’s spouse, but rather preferred to keep to his Spire-keeping duties. There was honour in all tasks, and the couple seemed to think similarly that to serve, in a manner, was to love.

Hallow had always thought it a precious story, to hoard in the crevices of their voidheart, for they too agreed. To love was to serve. Had been so for themselves, for a long while. This was what they were here for, with the water falling over their body both black and white; to love was to forsake rest and throw oneself into yet another ordeal, tired but also inspired, as an artist. Their feet weren’t hurried as they took on the streets, their eyes seeking to find changes in their most precious city. There was none. It had aged, but it remained the very same. Including the arcade they could see one well enough through the streets. Built at the crossroads of four taller buildings, it was a domed artwork of glass, with store fronts sheltered from the rain below their cover, and walkways above granting the covered passage another floor to tread and another row of stores. A building between buildings, like a plant much too strong and yet so gorgeous, built at the nexus of greater ones.

From here, they could see a bandstand. They didn’t near the arcade, but they liked to see that their memory was spotless in the details it held on. They had only visited this place once, at its opening. They had been considered deadly enough despite their height at the time so to accompany their father to this event. No other Knight had been available that date. There was never need, and as expected, the event had been uneventful. But they had found the place so beautiful, brimming with life, stores where all the goods of Hallownest were gathered, sold and traded. 

All of it, not only a product of their father’s doing in some manner, a distant ramification of his actions, was also something that now lived in itself, and took its first breath in gratefulness. Played all songs for him, bowed as he passed. The old and the new in a balance so even, they had wondered, then, if this was what happiness must be like. To be alive. See results to things done, see the old, the new, and self. To live was to have a routine where small blessings like these were recurring, often unplanned, but that should never be underestimated in their delicate existence. They wished they could have such a thing. For them, at the time, who had little thought and nearly no depths, they had thought a pleasantly  _ alive _ routine would have been a welcome addition to their own strict life at the White Palace. That visit wouldn’t repeat itself, they knew. So they had enjoyed it while it lasted, lost themselves for a moment, the first moment, to the music and the many lanterns that lit the now entirely dark Arcade like a palace of glowing crystals.

Their father most likely couldn’t recall that visit if asked. But for them, it was a fond memory. As they walked, no hurry on their pace, they crossed windows darkened by dust within, but smooth on their outside. They stood like smoky mirrors, and they saw themselves in warped reflections; tall and lithe body, with a most proud shell carved like holy charm, or like the palacian architecture of a monarch’s own home. Pale shells adorned them like armour plates, each piece seemingly selected, handcrafted and bestowed upon them as if they were not birthed in an egg but at a great inventor’s workshop. In a manner, that had been their birth indeed. Behind them, folded wings were arranged like folded fans, and shone as bright as their own pale carapace, contrasting with the black that alternated glowing plates and seemed to hold everything together.

For it was in such darkness within their eye sockets that two discrete dots of light hid, and in their diminutiveness concealed far more power, mind and soul than appearances suggested. The water that fell upon them slid over their body, taking on the light that made them shimmer like exquisite glasswork, before they dropped unto the ground below. The path behind them was lined in white tears, that seemed to mix with all others but never dilute, and slowly but progressively the veins between cobblestone were lighting up gently, bleeding unto the canal beyond, raising only the beginning of mist as they spilled thinly unto water below.

If they knew anything about their lineage’s brand of pale, soulful light, was that this glow would not dissolve for hours, but it was also not enough to light up the city, only to make a scene of the half-lit path they made left in their wake, strange and abnormal to any beholder. The awareness that they weren’t in a dream, traversing a memory too dear, hit them as hard as awareness could. The City was strangely vacant, but not dead. And it would either be some time until eyes turned themselves to the strange event happening outdoors, or they had already done so and pray to a memory of light that whatever thought that riddled that bug was a positive one. After so long being infected, it was anyone’s guess if their reaction would be similar or worse than those of the beasts that roamed the Kingdom’s Edge. 

Hallow let their eyes leave their reflection, before they took on a faster stride towards the passage at street level that cut below the Watcher’s Spire. Gated on either side, and with still-flying banners at their sides, it was a massive path, crowned by an elegantly sharp archway and doors on either side that led to the great halls above. The Spire was a wondrous sight even at the street level, with the finest chandelier hanging at its centre, polished lanterns littering its sides. The wide streets had once been buzzing, and the passage was but the most beautiful shelter from rain that the city possessed. The Spire narrowed the taller it went, up to its very tip that housed the quiet and reclusive Watcher himself. At its base, however, it was the widest building of the Capital, save for the White Palace below.

They had a destination in mind. Right beyond the Spire there was a fountain square. Not only just  _ a _ fountain square, but  _ the  _ Fountain Square that used to be one of the dearest spots of the West District. Around it, merchants and wanderers of most popular goods used to settle, and crowds of umbrellas would pass their covered stalls in bulk. At the fountain’s rim, bugs would take a seat and share a meal. Themselves had been here enough times, at the company of a Soul Scholar who took their training as seriously as they took on enjoying the pleasures of life. The fountain was a beautiful piece, housing at the centre of a great dish-like bloom of polished stone the twin states of King and Queen. Both wrongly at the same size, but most bugs had never seen the King, and his actual height was often disbelieved as rumour or calumny. Ironic, for the last that seemed concerned with the Pale King’s height was the King himself. 

At best, he might have wanted longer arms so he could keep wider workbenches. Nothing else truly seemed to bother the monarch. Nothing so shallow or diminute, at least. Every meal was pleasant, every performance at his halls he met as if they were the best he had ever seen, there was never anything to break his impossible composure. Nothing but the cost of all these things, of this Capital, of this Kingdom, and its salvation. The cost of keeping them around and dreading acknowledging them, at times. Those things did bother the Pale King, but never his height. The fountain had been made as tribute at the vision of the sculptors, and neither King or Queen had seen issue on simply letting it be. 

Regardless of its disproportion, they knew what they wanted with it. It was, at the end of all days, still a fountain. One with a tubulation system below that directly connected with the water of the canals, syphoning the water from most gutters, aqueducts and rooftops. It was but the most superficial great pipe, connected to many others and ultimately, all leading into the Royal Waterways below. All raindrops fell down, but the Capital was projected so that every light went up, reflected by crystal and glasswork.

Hallownest might reject them after all. Not welcoming another light so soon was wise, and if perhaps they were a little less foolish of heart, they would have shared their uncertainties were they still a broken vessel, tailing their sibling. But alas, they were not that being anymore. They were a light nonetheless, and to be so they needn't recognition, a crown, a mark, nor to claim any inheritance. That, they supposed, suited better leaders. One of powerful nailarm and unwavering determination, like the Ghost of Hallownest. That suited one like Hornet, who alone had spun Hallownest in her web and held it together in manners that they hadn’t thought possible. Who would spearhead that was up to debate, themselves had no duty but to counter the night, hopefully in a balance now, instead of hunting it unto its crevices as it had always done. For they were made of that, too, and they wished not to see it gone and see the Abyss sealed off its reaches. 

Their only duty so far was to be a light, and the common bugs, hidden from rain and danger in these dark homes, they had already been starved of a light for long enough. Their varying sizes of soul and mind seemed to stand proof of that. So much had decayed in them, perhaps more than in the city in itself. They needed not to show themselves to any Hallownest citizen to light up the city from underneath, they needed not their adoration, nor to take that undisturbed throne. And as they left the shelter beneath the Watcher’s Spire, once more under the downpour and towards the brief way that led towards the fountain square, they thought that perhaps it was for the best that they made it here before finding their siblings. It would buy Hallownest quite some time for any decision.

That the City of Tears stood as it was, was a miracle. As if it had been wrapped as a gift for themselves and themselves alone. Such a thought, however, felt far-fetched. They weren’t accustomed to the thought of things being made for them, and the few that they used to have, they had hoarded them for as long as they could. The bedroom that they no longer could fit in, the armour that wounded their carapace, their great nail, silent beholder of sighs without cues and emotions concealed in an impossible, unaltered silence. They had few things to call their own beyond a great duty, knowingly greater than themselves, as well a fate that used to seem certain.

It was a difficult thinking to break free from, even after their father’s words had been handed to them, like a light in a wasteland, being passed on from between his minuscule fingers to the cradle of their much larger ones. Even possessing shell coated in white or black, carved like a charm to signal a welcome death in trade of a metamorphosis, even feeling the vastness of their soul and mind and the power of it all… Even after hearing that no cost had been too great for them to inherit it all, it was still difficult to believe that any of this City’s beauty, its throne, its citizens, its joys and woes, waterways and arcades, were for them to inherit. Them, Hallow, Hornet, Ghost, and any other like them. Mattered not. When he said that no cost was too great to see his children inherit it, it should include them.

But leave Hallow alone with those words for long enough, and they would inevitably find a way to exclude themselves from such an inheritance, even if it had been said with a pair of hands at their shoulders, as one would honour a knight, hands against their chest, as one would recognise kin, and hands against their shell as one would recognise an equal. Hallow supposed they were indeed fated to be a light in some way or form, for it was a light’s nature to thrive in the grayness of such interpretations, and feel themselves viscous at the grip of any words too certain. It was difficult to think any of this was meant for them when they had spent so long at the Temple of the Black Egg, and none could have possibly imagined they would leave it.

But as they approached the fountain square, it was their very own features that they saw at the centrepiece of a bloom of stone, surrounded by the honoured three Dreamers, all evened out at the same height to surround them at its core. It was them not in armour, not in chain, but static at its centre. Where now stood the King’s Brand, there used to be a brooch of Hallownest’s seal in rare, Pale ore. They were carved not with the imposing shoulders in which they guarded their father’s side, nor a warrior’s stance to align them with the Five Great Knights. They stood cloaked in layered silks, as if it was but one of those days when none of them, be it Pale King or his Pure Vessel, would dare to appear to anyone who wasn't an ordinary sight to the White Palace. It was an image their father saw too often, but no other.

How many times had they stood like this, silent, straight and still, cloaked in gentle silk, and been the long shadow at their father’s side. No pauldrons, no great nail. No particularly exquisite gowns, no umbrellas to traverse the city above, no. This was not the Pure Vessel, nor the Hollow Knight pictured, but rather the King’s own phantasmagorical apparition, the one who haunted him, witnessed with that blank expression his most melancholic pieces, and had never ever given him a word about how much they appreciated every second they had spent like this. Not a Knight, not a Vessel. Just the upbringing of a Prince stillborn, with no words to acknowledge it as if doing so would break the spell with impossible misery. 

Their father had promised their White Lady that Hallownest would not remember them. She had told them as much, and they had no reason to believe she would lie about such a matter - she sought not to hurt one she believed felt nothing even borderline of what herself felt. For her, they felt only enough to taint them and curse Hallownest with themselves, but not enough to hurt from her words. Not enough to take on the belief that their father had done everything he could to erase their existence from all bugs who had heard or seen them. Yet, this stood. Not something for the Pale King to torture himself with, for he very rarely came to the City of Tears. Perhaps not a great memorial for the bugs of Hallownest, who knew so little of them, but a lot more of Lurien, Herrah and Monomon, enough that to behold this was to behold a stranger, and to see the Dreamers so smaller, might have been taken nearly as an offense.

_ Memorial to the Hollow Knight _

_ In the Black Vault far above _

_ Through its sacrifice Hallownest lasts eternal _

This was a memorial for them to find. For the children, whose cost was great but not too great if it meant they would find this, and inherit a Hallownest not yet gone beyond salvation. A memorial for a Hollow Knight, that could have been any of them, thus it stood for all of them as well, children at the Void who had been blessed with self-preservation and hadn’t yet ascended into the merciless Kingdom above. It could be for any of them, but they weren’t the Hollow Knight. Fate had made it Hallow. It was for them, for it was their horns pictured in that carving with so many spotless details, from the perfect angle to the barbs within the horns, so similar to the real creature, that it was difficult to imagine there weren't their own father’s hands and influence on the building of this piece.

It was a gift to them too. And it was still difficult to think so, accept so, but the thought was crippling in its warmth, in its tenderness. With the never-ending rain and the fact all drops that touched them whitened made it difficult to tell if the water that slid down their shell was rain alone. Either way, it was a welcome feeling. Much too warm, and much too gentle. Unexpected, too, and they knew not how to take such good surprises. They felt… So impossibly  _ loved _ , in a manner they did not know how to describe, and were thankful for the privacy of solitude, for it was much too personal as well. For many reasons, they should not love their father as much as they did. But alas, they did, and in no meagre amount.

To love was to serve. And it needn't be crippling, nor harmful, even if for so long it had been. They knew it didn’t need to be so. They would make it not be so. They could give in amounts that wouldn’t tear at themselves, and expect nothing else in turn. They could make it different, could love a memory without carrying all these expectations and weights unto a new life. They already loved in such a manner. It was all but a matter of letting them live that love through.

They knelled before the plaque, their height much too tall for the fountain’s edge to be a barrier for them. The water that gathered within pooled and ran down through pipes on the same speed it gathered. Made it seem like the rains didn’t get any heavier since Hallownest was sealed away. With their weight on their haunches, they stretched their arms above their head, stretching the plating as much as it would go - at this point, a ritual inherited. Wings followed the motion, stretching the farther up they could go, before holding spread. Slowly, they sunk their hands unto the pooling water within the fountain, and breathed out a soundless sigh. 

The light within them was a small thing. Tiny, like the dots that pinpointed their gaze now. Shy like a lumaflies in a distance, of no particular form. It betrayed its power, for it was but a pinprick in a veil, the keyhole in massive doors, and its truth lay beyond it. Creatures of Essence were unique, and no less powerful than one another, but ever so different. Wherein some ruled dreams, others nightmares, and others could reach dreams of plantlife, those where all realms lodged into something peculiar of all living beings - a mind. One of any size, and on any kind of being, be them shade, moss, bug or beast, there was a mind to dream, a mind to love, and a fraction of their mind that simmered into something thick and bright, known as soul. The summary of all one had been, one was, and would be. It was where the fates of all living things were written, and where before they were even born, it was already known the woes they would suffer, and their greatest achievements.

Soul was but a realm of its own, with endless light. One they envisioned in their own understanding and flavour of it, and visited it as a realm of endless fields, of steaming pale lakes and the curls of the gray fossilised corpse of a great Wyrm, or many. It was a realm not unlike their grave and their Hallownest. The way they inherited it had clouds of mist that resembled her own realm, but no light shone below pale clouds or dark, braided carcass. Its light shone but from everywhere, from lakes and suspended clouds themselves, and filtered by the glass domes of a great arcade akin to the one they just walked by, that light was syphoned by a chandelier of a million pieces. Below it such a majestic glasswork, another million strings hung from it. To pull at them was like tuning an exotic but exquisite instrument, directing that light unto different directions, many seals and etched doors on their arcade. It siphoned beams to many purposes, surely far more than they could ever imagine, and would ever know. 

But themselves, right below it, needed no great effort to siphon it to a familiar spell such as teleportation, the seal that symbolised it far too familiar on an opposing wall, and they needed no great effort either to diffuse that light unto themselves. From a million strings, a dozen were already familiar. And this all but seemed obvious, from all the ways they had seen it being done before. They basked under that light, and let it flood them in a progressively increasing glow. Greeted its strange warmth that only themselves could feel. They directed it to their hands, the first before the light channeled from above.

Their fingers within pooled water not only dyed it white, but the accompanying glow wasn’t subtle as it had been on the trail they left wherever they went. The fountain lit itself from below, illuminated by the very waters and its torch-like surface, and the light travelled into the pipelines below. They could see it travelling on gutters, trailing quickly and not bothering with the maze-like cracks of cobblestone. It straight up travelled upwards towards roofs and the spines of great windows and mosaics. It travelled up the dotted path many raindrops left in their wake, making dull stones twinkle gently, dripping light upwards while the raindrops slid downwards. Slowly, like a great slithering beast, light lit up the canals below, and spiralled around statues at rooftops, sought for the spires of the buildings. 

The gloom of the city never truly vanished. The City of Tears had always been a gloomy, rainy place. But it did shine beautifully silver and pale when it reached noon, the highest light could ever reach, and dotted the very ceiling of the city above with infinite suspended raindrops. The brightest of the City of Tears lit up every alleyway with light on glassworks and ceiling rims that made it all seem too beautiful to be commonplace, a sight to rival and beat the White Palace by far. It hunted the shadows indoors, and towards the edges of the Capital. It was beautiful, in an indescribable manner. To inherit such a thing was to live in dread of losing it, but to love it at every second. It was the casual, routinary happiness they thought they simply would never feel - to inherit it, was to wake every day having a taste of the sum of life, in a gentle pleasantness many grew to overlook.

When the light reached the top of the Watcher’s Spire, it was but a few moments until it travelled up a singular drop’s trail, and the ceiling lit up all at once, infinite drops shimmering like lumaflies when at their full size, losing their light in specks and aerial trails as they fell down. Hallownest’s noon was but a hauntingly beautiful thing. Within their soul, they pulled at the figurative strings of the massive chandelier. The light in their hands, their shell, and at the very dots of their eyes diminished as a result. Their wings folded once more, no more dissipating the excess light and from blinding blades, they furled unto gently glowing fans behind them, resting over them and the floor like a stiff mantle. They shook their fingers when they removed them from the water, dismissing the leftover water from their hands but did not let them stray just yet. They rested their fingers atop the plaque before them.

Their light could blind them to their surroundings, in a manner. They were still learning, and for now, they could only but keep attention to one thing at a time. They hadn’t heard anything beyond the rain when they focused, and hadn’t seen at their peripherals anything but the lighting up Capital. They hadn’t seen the crowd gathering until now, but now all they could hear was their murmurs, alongside the rain that now seemed to underscore such concerning, muffled cacophony. Their head turned, and there were as many steps back towards the direction they looked at as there were quick, clumsy, low bows. Fear, respect, uncertainty. The sort of thing they had hoped to avoid in its entirety without their siblings near, now raised from the masses like mist.

Hallow needed not to fear, they supposed. For as their eyes went to their other flank, turned towards the gated entrance of the Soul Sanctum, at the front row stood a familiar duo. Their sister, in red, with her needle at her back and her ever-revolving coat. She looked at them, unmoving, but her stance seemed not too different from the bugs behind her. Between hurrying forwards, or backwards, between fight or flight. She had not a drop of Void in her, and their light must be eerie to her eyes, suspicious for one both Weaver and Wyrm. But the one that stood next to her, nail in hand, had plenty of Void on them.

Ghost stood a finger taller than their sister now, and those horns of theirs had become sinuous. Too etched but not in the manner holy charms and the craft of monarchs was made, but in the very manner the Void braided stone, with spirals and strong lines. Horns tainted black almost to reach their base, where those designs briefly made themselves clear, drawing strange frontiers between holy shell and abyssal nature. Their nail was a little too short now for their height, but no less of a threat, drawn at their side. They, more than any other, had reason to suspect them, despise them even. Both a light, which they were made to oppose, as well the wandering corpse of one they must have heard death for one knows how long.

Nothing moved when the Ghost of Hallownest drew their nail. The light of the city seemed to dimmer when one’s eyes beheld them in their sight. No raindrop shined near where they stood, all water reverting back to its transparent nature. They were the only one standing with a particularly well lined shadow on the cobblestone below. A detail one would not notice with ease, but for Hallow, that opposition was despairingly loud to their new sight. That shadow did indeed oppose their light, and they felt it at every moment they beheld them. But they were also part of that darkness. Ghost too was part of their light. In very little proportions, but they were.

They weren’t gray. They were both highest heights, midnight and midday, either one choosing their weapon and having become masters of very different crafts. This was not a shadow they feared, no. This was one they felt right at home with. They wondered, however, if that recognition was exclusive to themselves and themselves alone. When they spoke, they sought for that voidhearted bond, and no other, and prayed that they had found it.  _ “...This time, I promise to not make promises I cannot keep. Hopefully you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not guarding your molt, as I had promised.” _

Those were careful words, gentle but measured. Handed to the air hopefully in a manner that the other would not take as an offense. They hadn’t dared to imagine what they must be thinking, no. They understood Ghost to be very different from themselves, and as such, much of what they felt and the very manner they felt things must be highly different from their own. Nonetheless they wondered what repertoire of events must have taken place in their absence. To wake, alone, and find them dead by either abandoned great nail or by spoken word. To find all of their efforts of their time together wasted away for something so minor, so pitiful. May their sibling never know how simple was the damage that had broken them apart. Did they mourn them, did they feel any misplaced guilt? How large was the harm that the former Hollow Knight accidentally caused to their siblings’ heart? Did they only not recognise them, or did they actively despite them for it all? 

Their answer was the sound of a rustle of a mothwing cloak, and it had the shape of a dashing form. They only had time to turn their body to their side before they had Ghost’s black horns mercilessly rebounding against their own shell. Their nail was very much abandoned at their feet for the sake of wrapping arms around their neck that felt far more solid than they ever did before. Solid fingers dug against them, against white plating and black carapace, when they wrapped their arms around their neck, holding with more strength than they had ever wielded before. Through that bond of theirs, there was only but the intonation of their willed voices, and whatever other sign they could read from their hardly expressive masks. But as they felt their sibling’s body tremble before holding on them tighter, they could only but imagine mourning hadn’t been kind to them. It never was. To remain functional through it did not necessarily mean one could traverse through it with ease. And they had a feeling their sibling was most functional through it, to rival their sister’s hardness, but that meant little before the woes of a heart. And to match, their sibling’s voice was not unlike a crackle - immense, near violent relief, all strength and little eloquence. 

_ “I won’t forgive it, no, you will have to make up for it. I don’t know how, but you will.” _ Their sibling spoke, and sounded not much better than broken glass. To think, their voice in their bond had always been so clear and crystalline. Unaltered neutrality, of clear words but carrying a strange tension as if they were at the brink of shedding away clear pronunciation and just taking on a distorter roar instead. This, however, was distress at all fronts. Distress at eloquence, distress at bestial nature. Their sibling wasn’t voicing only their distress, no, but they felt as if there were many others sharing that emotion. 

Oh, Hallow would find a way to make up for it indeed. Every day, in some manner, way or form. It wouldn’t be a task nor a punishment, but rather a duty they were more than willing to take on. They wrapped an arm around their sibling, returning their embrace with just as much tightness. The other, however, they stretched outwards. 

Hornet, brave, stiff, courageous Hornet, had remained in place for all of it. She too knew grief, and for a while nearly as long as Hallow themselves did. She knew grief, and bore it in silence, bore it with action, and little respite. Bore it in the same way that the Ghost of Hallownest moved across the land, finding at the end of their weapon the solution to everything that they could not immediately remedy, and they both let time soften those edges like a city’s pavement, before they dared to bring their thoughts back to it. Their siblings were strong, but they needn't be strong alone, nor to hide it all under uncountable layers, enough that they never found themselves beneath it all once they recollected.

She wasted no time on taking on the vacant spot, near her sibling. Hallow let their arms finally wrap around them both, their mask all but squeezed between two others all too similar yet distinctly different. Their siblings, and the entirety of their world, could fit within the expanse of two steps to any direction. It was more than enough reward for all of their life before. If only time too was something they could alter, and travel back to a time wherein their landscape was grievous and dark, composed of impenetrable walls and endless golden clouds. If only they could pass on a thought and moment to themselves of the age before, they would have liked to pass on this embrace. For it, alone along the awareness that the future held far more hope than they could have ever dreamt, that moment would have been enough to comfort forevermore. It made it all worth it, they thought. Every ill thought, every grave wound. Any mourning, minor or great, and anything else they might still unknowingly carry in their heart, metamorphosis no ultimate healing but rather mindful transmutation. 

They held onto them tightly for a while that they did not count, only hoarded it in their heart, at a particularly special place in their soul. They might change at every great event, undergo as many molts that the world deemed necessary to keep them in this world, one thing that seemed to remain true to all versions of themselves was that they were, eternally and irreparably, a hoarder of such memories. Who enjoyed so vibrantly these moments of life, basked thoroughly in their emotions in whatever manner they came, and collected that picture of reality to accompany them like a gallery of their own making, from now and into eternity.

“...I am sure you will find a way to explain what happened with the little amount of paper that I own.” She breathed out, another pair of arms so often concealed under her red coat so to don’t so openly display her Deepnest bloodline, it too joined on holding on to them. Most bugs in Hallownest rejoiced on one pair of arms and one pair of legs, the exceptions tending to be either beasts or the feared, rather merciless creatures of Deepnest. A prejudice that, at the time, wasn’t entirely unfounded. Moth assassins hadn’t been rare, some taking as far as to join the Hallownest Guard and at the earliest opportunity, make an attempt at their King’s life. Equally, Deepnest had its fair number of silent, operative weavers, who heeding by no order made their way into the Kingdom and sought the death of creatures who by their law and understanding, should not live if they had not the means to fight for themselves.

Hornet too was born of a contradicting heritage. One that to protect the Kingdom and all of its life, including the consciousness of Deepnest and her kin, she too had to hide. A nature she too had to hide and was only marginally welcome in White Halls, uninvited and unannounced at great balls and parades. Like the Void, so prominent on their sibling, it was but only a nature accepted as long as it could be harnessed, controlled. Borderlander Queen and Lord of the Abyss both were defeated at a reign of pale light, but outlasted its era and another onwards.

They would not light up a Hallownest without either at their side, no. It was their path that they hoped to kindle, accompany, lead, and fall back behind them. Never push them aside. At their shells, above their eyes, shone brighter than them and the downpour a brand that the three shared. A King’s Brand at the Daughter of Three Queens, whose journey was of contempt, vigilance, protection and life, at its rawest, most stubborn resilience. A King’s Brand at the Ghost of Hallownest, Lord of Shades, whose journey was one of endurance, discovery, and a strength that paved the world before them in whichever manner they chose, a strength that needed not to exist without a spacious heart and valorous approach. A King’s Brand at their own mask, their journey one of many tragedies and great hope. Of duties greater than themselves, and an everlasting faith to meet them.

They could see their sister crowned, in a near future and slightly more stable Hallownest; having been a present inhabitant of the fading Kingdom, one that understood so well the woes that plagued common bug, they thought no other was best suitable to spearhead this Kingdom’s revival. Ghost and Hallow were much too different, genuine but burdened by the aloofness that seemed to plague Higher Beings. It was the correct terminology, was it not? Beings that tampered in elements and essences as powerful as the ones they dabbled, it was what they had become. To crown Hornet was a statement too of the importance of the borderlander regions, that had never truly felt like part of Hallownest and yet had outlasted it all. It was a new era, and it would look better with Hornet atop it. One as much Wyrm as much Weaver. One with wisdom, resilience, beauty and flaws. The one that would have stood before that never-ending night or everlasting noon and endured either however she could.

The details could be arranged, discussed. There was no hurry. Hallownest had waited for so, so long, caught in this stasis held by its Hollow Knight’s and Forgotten Light’s imprisonment. It could wait a while longer. Nothing that came forth would need to be handled alone; no more abandonment, not again. As they raised their head just slightly, to behold their statue for a moment, they watched the rain twinkle as it bounced against stone, caught in smoothly carved eyes and down the Hallownest seal of their sculptured self. The fountain was incomplete, they thought. It was not through their sacrifice alone that Hallownest would last eternal. 

If it would hold forevermore in suspension and controlled alternation between bright middays and heavy midnights, with life enduring and basking on either, then it most certainly wasn’t a victory of themselves only to claim, or their father’s. They supposed that there was enough room in that fountain to add a couple more Wyrmchildren. The metaphorical throne too must be large enough to fit them all.

They would find out, they supposed. For once, what lay ahead was a mystery, the unfolding tale that continued once all tragedy was done with its course. They saw nothing beyond it. Not their death, for once. No death, actually, no end at all. They were all but starting the Creator’s prelude, the never-ending ordeal called a life, that implied facing dread and joy at every step and creating a composition for each new day, each new task, each new woe. They were composers now, they supposed, as their father had been. 

Hallownest would be a wondrous stage once again. Its future was a piece with no scheduled time to end, and with three composers to fill its fate, they thought they could do something good with it, yes. Perhaps even better than their father had done.

Death but further transformation. Sometimes, rebirth into something much greater than anyone could have envisioned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a trip, huh? Do you hate me? How do you feel? Not good? Me neither.
> 
> Questions? Ideas? I am surprised that more people did not see this coming. Its in the summary, folks. What is death but further transformation? Hallownest needing a light?? Hallow being often and constantly being referred to as the most soulful fella in town??? If ya didn’t see this coming and feel kinda dumb right now, then it means I did a great job at foreshadowing. Cheers me.
> 
> Things that I will clarify in story but I still want to bring it here because I do not trust my writing skills:   
> Higher Beings (in my personal conception) are beings who live too strongly. Massive souls, great powers, and abilities that range and differ, but are sometimes similar. That’s why Grimm always managed to hear the Vessels. Mindreading/Hivemind/Bond is something Higher Beings have. Including lil Ghost here, theirs is limited however to creatures of Void. Hallow here inherited dad’s and mom’s brand: if it lives, it has soul. If it thinks, it can think harder and I can mess with it.   
> Any Vessel could have been the Shade Lord or a brand new light. I have mentioned it before, but I feel like repeating it. Which means, if we had 348 vessels in Hallownest, who’s to say if we wouldn’t have more Shade Lords or lights? All of them have the potential, just like humans have to be Mozarts and MMA champions. It is just… hard as fuck. And they got some extra help, with Hallow inheriting what their father built, a realm that makes it easier to interpret and use their skills, and Ghost inheriting the Kingsoul Charm, which by embedding with Void, they got their memory and full ability to speak with their kin.  
> I had hoped to do art of Hallow, so the description of how they look now would be more clear. But alas, I did not manage. I am a bad artist I guess. Just imagine that the larger plating, like a plate armour, is not white and etched like a kingsoul charm. The rest of the carapace is black. Why? Because I could not bear the thought of making them a light and either just full white, thus disregarding again their void half, or making just their shell white, which actively would make them a matchstick on fire. Unaesthetic as fuck, I think you will agree. 
> 
> Stay around for the Prologue! 
> 
> Special thanks to my personal Pantheon of Hallownest:  
> Laurie  
> JeffNorseGod  
> GuestyGirl  
> Sidotherobot  
> All others who left a comment, but these are the recurring bugs, each sitting atop their lil pantheons, beautiful folks with always constructive feedback and endless patience. I could never be like them. I can't read. I'm dyslexic.
> 
> By the way, don't like to write comments here? Hit me up in Instagram or Discord! ( @riptaide or Herja#8664)

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far, leave me a thought? A kudo? I love to hear what people think of the monsters I create. Take care!


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